China’s house prices stabilise in June

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Reuters reports that:

New home prices fall in 21 cities in June versus 40 in May

* Market expects home price to rise in H2 -Reuters poll

BEIJING, July 18 (Reuters) – China home prices were flat in June versus May, calculations based on official data showed on Wednesday, breaking eight straight months of decline in a tentative sign that pro-growth government economic policies are gaining traction.

Real estate was cited by the National Bureau of Statistics last week as a restraint on economic activity in the first half of 2012 when it published data revealing Q2 GDP growth of 7.6 percent from a year ago – the slowest expansion in more than three years and the sixth successive quarter of easing growth.

The statistics bureau’s month-on-month data showed Beijing home prices rose 0.3 percent while Shanghai’s gained 0.2 percent, although the two key cities saw year-on-year price falls of 1 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively.

Home prices nationwide were down 1.5 percent in June on a year earlier, according to Reuters calculations based on the official data.

And here is a chart courtesy of Bloomberg:

About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.