BEIJING—A monthly measure of new home prices in China fell for the first time in more than six years, offering further evidence of the pain that Beijing’s regulatory campaign is inflicting on a sector that has long served as an economic growth engine.
Average new-home prices in 70 major cities edged 0.11% lower in April from a year earlier, according to Wall Street Journal calculations based on data released Wednesday by China’s National Bureau of Statistics.
The decline, though slight, marks the first such decrease since November 2015 when China was wrestling with a pronounced slowdown. It follows a 0.66% year-over-year increase in March.
When compared with the previous month, Chinese new-home prices declined for an eighth consecutive month, falling 0.3% in April—wider than March’s 0.07% month-to-month decrease.
New-home prices rose in just 30 of the 70 cities last month, compared with the 40 cities that saw increases in March. The declines were generally concentrated in China’s smaller and poorer cities, Sheng Guoqing, an analyst at the statistics bureau, said Wednesday.
Taken together, the numbers suggest that the efforts taken so far by Chinese officials to halt the bleeding in the sector have yet to stir home buying across the country.
In recent months, dozens of cities across China have eased home-purchasing curbs, issued subsidies and lowered mortgage rates in a bid to boost buyer confidence. On Sunday, China’s central bank allowed lenders to cut mortgage rates for first-time home buyers.
A commercial housing community under construction in Nanjing, China, earlier this year.
Photo:
Costfoto/Zuma Press
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