Growth in China’s new home prices grew fell to their slowest monthly pace in November since March of this year.
The slowing supports the idea that Chinese regulators have succeeded in containing a break out in property prices for the time being.
The data comes ahead of a last set of monthly economic figures for November later which are expected to support the strength of recovery of the world’s second-largest economy.
Strong car sales, exports and modest import volumes, plus weak inflation, already support the idea the economy is doing better than it was three months ago, as we head towards the end of 2020.
Monday’s release showed average new home price across 70 major cities rose 0.1% in November from October, according to data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
That compared with 0.2% on-month growth in October.
Prices were up 4.0% in November from the same month a year earlier, the weakest annual growth rate since February 2016.
That compared with a 4.3% on-year increase in October and 6.6% in the year to January, as the pandemic started sweeping through China and shutting down the country.
The NBS figures also showed the number of those cities reporting monthly new home price increases fell to 36, from 45 in October – the lowest since February during the height of the pandemic across China.
Reuters pointed out that house price rises are uneven and concentrated in the southern Pearl River Delta and eastern Yangtze River Delta.
In the north, some cities have seen demand slump after an initial spurt, prompting authorities to act to prevent a market crash.
China’s banking regulator recently highlighted the property sector as a significant risk to financial stability, branding it a “grey rhino” – an obvious yet ignored threat, Reuters explained in Monday’s story.
