CHINA'S urban property prices continued to climb at a record pace in April, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday.
Real estate prices in 70 major cities on the Chinese mainland jumped 12.8 percent, the biggest year-on-year gain since July 2005, when the bureau doubled the number of cities it was tracking.
The April lift, accelerating from an 11.7-percent increase in March and a 10.7-percent gain in February, was the 11th in a row since last June, when property prices in the 70 cities monitored by the government started to register a 0.2-percent growth following minor declines for six months.
"The figure came as no surprise to me as it usually takes about three months to see the effectiveness of government policies which were just introduced a couple of weeks ago," said Sky Xue, an analyst with China Real Estate Information Corporation.
"It is thus possible that property prices will continue to increase next monthand a drop could appearas early as July," Xue said.
In Shanghai, transactions in new homes have plunged for three consecutive weeks by more than 30 percent since the central government launched its toughest policies to date to crack down on property speculation.
However, the average price of new homes, excluding those designated for relocated residents under urban-redevelopment plans, maintained a high level of above 25,000 yuan (US$3,661) per square meter during the same period, according to statistics released by the Shanghai Uwin Real Estate Information Services Co.
Caps set
On April 15 the central government raised the down-payment requirement on second-home mortgages to at least 50 percent from 40 percent.
Two days later, the State Council, the nation's Cabinet, issued a notice saying that banks should suspend housing credit to third or more home buyers.
It also said financial institutions should stop offering loans to people who had not paid personal income tax or social security funds in the previous 12 months in places where they were seeking to buying homes.
Local governments were given the official go-ahead to set a cap on the number of homes a buyer can own as a temporary move.
Beijing announced that it would limit residents to buying one new home starting this month, becoming the first Chinese city to set such a cap.
In Shanghai, where detailed guidelines have yet to be released by the local watchdog, there has been market speculation that the city is likely to implement a similar policy, Oriental Morning Post reported yesterday.
Across the country, prices of new and existing homes jumped 15.4 percent and 10.5 percent year on year in April while in Shanghai, they rose 12 percent and 12.5 percent.
In the first four months of this year, property sales, by area, rose 32.8 percent nationwide to 234 million square meters, 3 percentage points lower from the growth in the first quarter, the statistics bureau said.