BEIJING (Reuters) – New home prices in China fell at the fastest pace since May 2015, official data showed on Friday, despite stepped-up efforts to revive the struggling real estate sector.
According to Reuters calculations based on data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), year-on-year prices of new houses fell by 5.8% compared to the previous year, which was deeper than the 5.3% decline in August.
New home prices fell for the fifteenth month in a row, falling 0.7% month-on-month in September, comparable to the decline in August.
In recent weeks, China has introduced supportive measures, including lower mortgage rates and easing restrictions on home purchases, which have stimulated some demand in major cities.
The housing authority on Thursday announced plans to expand the “white list” of eligible housing projects and increase bank lending to 4 trillion yuan by the end of the year in a bid to stabilize the troubled real estate sector.
