URBAN property prices in China continued to rise at a slower pace last month, but still secured a year-on-year gain for 17 months in a row.
Real estate prices in 70 major Chinese cities climbed 8.6 percent last month from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday.
Property prices across the country grew the fastest in April - up 12.8 percent - and started to decelerate in May. Slower growth has continued since then.
This is attributed to tightening policies introduced from mid-April by the central government aimed at curbing property speculation, which has been largely blamed for ever-climbing housing prices.
On a month-on-month basis, real estate prices edged up 0.2 percent in October, also slowing down from a 0.5 percent gain in September.
"Generally speaking, transaction volume and average prices remained stable across the country, particularly in the new-home market," said Shao Minghao, research head of Shanghai Hanyu Property Consulting Co.
"Meanwhile, the latest tightening measures have had quite a small impact on most second- and third-tier cities, where speculation demand was comparatively low."
In Shanghai, new-home prices climbed for the fourth consecutive month in October, amid undiminished interest from buyers in upscale properties. New houses were sold for an average 21,884 yuan (US$3,271) per square meter across the city last month, up 3.1 percent from September, according to Shanghai Uwin Real Estate Information Services Co.
By volume, a total of 1.32 million square meters of new houses were sold in Shanghai last month, compared with 1.33 million square meters registered in September, the highest monthly volume so far this year, Uwin said.
Across the country, prices of new and existing homes jumped 10.6 percent and 5.9 percent in October from a year earlier, compared with 11.3 percent and 6.2 percent increases in September. In Shanghai, they rose 3.3 percent and 5.6 percent.
New-home sales continued to grow in the first 10 months. New-property sales jumped 9.1 percent year on year to 724 million square meters, accelerating from a growth of 8.2 percent for the first three quarters. By value, they rose 17.3 percent to 3.7 trillion yuan, the bureau said.
Yang Hongxu, an analyst with Shanghai-based E-house China Research and Development Institute, said with measures getting tougher, developers' capital flow would turn to "tight" from "loose."
"Capital pressure in the first quarter of next year would prompt them to promote sales with price cuts," he said, expecting prices to fall in the first quarter in 2011 as the measures continued to squeeze the market.