SHANGHAI was the only one of 70 major cities across the Chinese mainland to see average housing prices fall last month compared with July 2005.

Average prices for new and used homes in the city were down 1.6 percent year on year last month, according to a report issued yesterday by the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Bureau of Statistics.
During the second quarter of this year, Shanghai was also the only one of the 70 cities to see housing prices decline year on year. They were down 2.8 percent compared with the same period last year.

Prices of new apartments in Shanghai were down 3.5 percent in July from the same month last year, the biggest drop of three mainland cities that reported a decrease, the report said.

The other two cities to see new housing prices drop during the month were Dandong in northeastern China's Liaoning Province, and Wenzhou in Zhejiang Province. Dandong posted a 0.2 percent decline, while prices in Wenzhou slipped 0.1 percent.

While new home prices slipped, the city's second-hand housing market was bullish last month. Prices of second-hand houses rose 1.8 percent in July from a year earlier, and grew 0.2 percent from June this year.

Housing prices in the 70 major cities rose an average 5.7 percent last month over the previous year, after growing at an average rate of 5.8 percent the previous month.

Among the 70 cities, average prices rose 0.5 percent in July from June. Shenzhen reported the biggest increase in housing prices of any of the cities surveyed, with average housing prices in July rising 13.5 percent since the same month last year. It was followed by Beijing at 9.8 percent and Hohhot, capital of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, at 9.4 percent.

Source:佚名