China's buoyant property market shows further signs of cooling down, according to official data released on Aug 18.

Data published by the National Bureau of Statistics showed that the pace of price growth of new homes in 15 key cities across China continued to slow in July, and second-and third-tier cities showed a clear decline in price growth.

Liu Jianwei, senior statistician at the NBS, says that looking at the overall picture, home prices in first-tier cities were stable, while price growth in lower-tier cities slowed down noticeably in July.

"Home price growth in the 15 key cities narrowed by somewhere between 0.8 and 4.9 percentage points year-on-year," Liu says, interpreting the NBS research that monitors home prices in 70 cities on a monthly basis.

On a month-on-month examination, 10 of the 15 key cities experienced new home prices dropping, or maintained prices at the same level as that in June. Five cities experienced slight growth, at no more than 0.4 percent month-on-month, Liu adds.

On average, in first-tier cities new home prices were at the same level in July as in June, and pre-owned home prices dropped by about 0.1 percent month-on-month. In second-tier cities, new home prices rose by about 0.4 percent month-on-month in July, slower than the 0.6 percent record in June.

In third-tier cities, new home prices rose by 0.6 percent month-on-month in July - versus the 0.9 percent record growth in June. Preowned home prices rose by 0.4 percent, against the 0.7 percent record gain in June.

Beijing - China's biggest residential property market - experienced home price declines for two consecutive months, the first time for the capital in the past 12 months.

Transaction volumes also went down in some key cities, including Beijing and Shanghai. For example, 7,158 units in pre-owned residential properties in Beijing were transacted in July, a 20 percent month-on-month decrease and a 70 percent year-on-year decline, and the lowest level in the past 36 months.

"Summer is often the slack season for property transactions, so this seasonal factor also contributed to the lower transactions", says Zhang Dawei, an analyst with Centaline Property in Beijing.

"But if transactions continue to drop, average prices are likely to drop too," Zhang adds.

Yan Yuejin, research director with E-house China R&D, says that transaction volumes will gradually affect the overall price trend.

"More cities are likely to experience average price declines in the last months of the year," he says.

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(China Daily European Weekly 08/25/2017 page29)