China’s home prices fell 0.03 percent from a month earlier in September, the first decline in a year, said Soufun Holdings Ltd. (SFUN), the country’s biggest real estate website owner.
Residential prices rose in 54 of 100 cities tracked by Soufun and fell in 44 cities, with average home values nationwide at 8,877 yuan ($1,396) a square meter, Soufun said in an e-mailed statement today. Compared with the same month last year, average prices rose 6.15 percent, Soufun said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-08/china-home-prices-drop-for-first-time-in-a-year-soufun-says.html
July 100 City home prices down 1.32% .
http://www.chinarealestatenews.com/news/2010-08-03/10062/
according to the city price index of the 100 cities, in July 2010, the average price of per square meter residential property price fell 1.32% to 8308 yuan. The price in Harbin rose the most, by 2.95%. While southern city of Shantou posted the most decline of 4.32%.
I am not able to tell whether the numbers are for month over month or year over year. According to the Chinese version of the same report, the price drop was for month over month (compared to June 2010).
Not sure how assuring this is. But the measures cited in the news sound very familiar:
- Second-home restrictions: tightening of credit access for buyers of second homes
- Land supply: the government would open up for development an additional 180,000 hectares — double the amount made available in 2009
And in a related note, China’s biggest builder by square footage sold, Hengda, has announced a strategic 15% drop in price for properties they develop and sell in China. Even though 15% isn’t very much compared to last year’s run-up in prices, it would be interesting to see whether this will trigger domino effect among other builders.
There are a couple of interesting reports floating around on China Daily recently.
Beijing unveils tough measures to curb housing price rises
China needs three decades to make homes affordable
According to Chen, China has built about 70 million residential apartments in its urban areas in the past decade, which equals to one-third of the households. The figures indicated that only three or four out of 100 households moved into new apartments each year.
"China faces a severe housing shortage," Chen said. "Even if apartments didn’t cost any money, four units wouldn’t turn into 70 apartments."
Very interesting comments. On one hand, there is a “severe housing shortage” based on demand projection, which maybe partially explains why the housing price is shooting up so rapidly. On the other hand, housing price has driven the ordinary Joes out of the market. In cities like Ordos, a large percentage of apartments are empty, either unsold or horded by empty-nester investors, creating ghost cities like the one featured on Time.
- http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1975397_2094492,00.html