BEIJING (Reuters) -China’s new home prices fell at the slowest pace in 17 months, official data showed on Monday, as the government scaled up stimulus measures to lift the crisis-hit property sector.
New home prices were down 0.1% month-on-month after a 0.5% dip in October, the slowest pace since June last year, according to Reuters calculations based on National Bureau of Statistics data.
In annual terms, new home prices fell 5.7% after a 5.9% drop the previous month.
China’s policymakers in recent months doubled down on their efforts to revive the country’s property sector, which crashed in 2021 after a government-led campaign to rein in developers’ leverage left them cash-strapped.
The country’s top leadership vowed in a meeting of the Politburo on Dec. 9 and the Central Economic Work Conference, held on Dec. 11-12, to stabilise the property market.
Among 70 cities surveyed，month-on-month home prices rose in 17 cities, an increase of 10 from the previous month.
Recent measures aimed at encouraging homebuying included cutting mortgage rates and minimum down-payment ratios, as well as tax incentives to lower the cost of housing transactions.
The biggest cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, have since implemented the tax breaks to spur housing sales.
Last month, home prices rose 0.6% and 0.3% on month in Shanghai and Shenzhen, separately, and fell 0.5% in Beijing.
(Reporting by Yukun Zhang, Liangping Gao and Ryan Woo; Editing by Stephen Coates)
