THE rise in China's urban property prices slowed for the third straight month in July as central government policies tightening mortgage rules continued to take effect.
Real estate prices in 70 major cities on the Chinese mainland rose 10.3 percent last month, extending their year-on-year gain for the 14th consecutive month, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday.
That compared to growth of 11.4 percent in June, 12.4 percent in May and 12.8 percent in April, the biggest year-on-year gain since July 2005, when the bureau doubled the number of cities it was tracking.
On a month-on-month basis, no change was recorded, the bureau said.
"The year-on-year growth will continue to slow in the coming few months as property prices jumped the quickest across the country during the second half of last year," said Lu Qilin, a researcher with Shanghai Uwin Real Estate Information Services Co.
Across the country, prices of new and existing homes rose 12.9 percent and 6.7 percent respectively in July from a year earlier, compared to a gain of 14.1 percent and 7.7 percent in June. In Shanghai, they rose 8 percent and 6.3 percent last month.
In the first seven months this year, property sales by area rose 9.7 percent nationwide to 458 million square meters, 5.7 percentage points lower than the growth in the first half. Sales by value, meanwhile, jumped 16.8 percent to 2.29 trillion yuan (US$338.2 billion), 8.6 percentage points lower than the growth in the first six months.
In July alone, sales of new real estate by area fell 15.4 percent from a year earlier to 64.66 million square meters while by value they plunged 19.3 percent to 306.6 billion yuan, the bureau said.
In Shanghai, sales of new homes dropped 60 percent to 4 million square meters during the first seven months this year, the lowest over the past five years, Uwin found.
Between January and July, new homes in the city, excluding those for relocations, sold at an average 20,824 yuan per square meter, compared to 14,536 yuan in the same period last year.