Major Chinese cities reported falling home prices in January with narrowing declines, official data showed on Friday.
The National Bureau of Statistics said 56 of 70 large and medium-sized cities saw month-on-month drops in new home prices, down from 62 in December 2023, and 68 registered price declines for second-hand homes, compared to 70 in the previous month.
Prices were down 0.7 per cent from a year earlier, marking the steepest fall in 10 months, compared with a 0.4 per cent fall in December.
The property market, once a pillar of the world’s second-biggest economy, has been in the doldrums since 2021 due to a series of defaults among overleveraged developers.
China has been ramping up measures to arrest a property downturn, including ordering state banks to boost lending to residential projects under the “whitelist” mechanism. More big cities have also eased purchase curbs to lure homebuyers.
The country’s central bank on Tuesday announced its biggest ever reduction in the benchmark mortgage rate, although analysts believe its impact on home price will be limited given existing mortgage holders will not benefit until next year.
