China's new home prices fall at fastest pace since 2015
New home prices fell in monthly and annual terms
Authorities stepped up efforts to prop up the property sector
Adds Q3 GDP, property sales, comments
By Liangping Gao and Ryan Woo
BEIJING, Oct 18 (Reuters) -China's new home prices fell at the fastest pace since May 2015 in September, official data showed on Friday, despite increased efforts to revive the struggling property sector.
In annual terms, new home prices were down 5.8% from a year earlier, deeper than a 5.3% slide in August, according to Reuters calculations based on National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data. Reuters also reported prices fell 5.7%, which was due to an automated rounding off of figures.
New home prices were down for the 15th consecutive month, falling 0.7% month-on-month in September and matching a dip in August.
The weakness in the sector sent China's CSI300 real estate index down nearly 3% in early trading, bucking the lift in the broader index.
China's prolonged property downturn, which once accounted for a quarter of its economic activity, remains a major drag on the economy.
In recent weeks, China has introduced supportive measures, including lower mortgage rates, and eased home purchase restrictions, which have spurred some demand in major cities.
On Thursday, the housing authority announced plans to expand the "white list" of eligible housing projects and increase bank lending to 4 trillion yuan by year-end, in a bid to stabilise the ailing real estate sector.
Additionally, China is expected to raise 6 trillion yuan through special treasury bonds over the next three years to reinvigorate its struggling economy.
Friday's data showed the economy grew 4.6% in the third quarter, slowing from 4.7% in the second quarter.
"The soft reading puts the annual growth target under pressure as the economy will have to post a sharp quarterly rebound of about 1.5% in the final quarter," said economist Junyu Tan at Coface Greater China Services Limited.
Of the 70 cities surveyed by NBS, two reported year-on-year gains in prices last month.
Separate data also published on Friday showed property sales down 17.1% in January-September, compared with a 18.0% slump in January-August.
China's real estate stocks fell after a closely watched housing policy briefing on Thursday left some investors disappointed due to lack of big fresh stimulus.
"Addressing the imbalance between too much stock and too little confidence will be key to stabilizing China's property market," said S&P Global Ratings in a research note on Friday.
"We estimate national property sales will decline to about 8.5 trillion-9 trillion yuan in 2024 and further to 8 trillion-8.5 trillion yuan in 2025," said S&P Global Ratings analyst Edward Chan.
Reporting by Ella Cao, Liangping Gao and Ryan Woo; Editing by Sam Holmes
免责声明: XM Group仅提供在线交易平台的执行服务和访问权限，并允许个人查看和/或使用网站或网站所提供的内容，但无意进行任何更改或扩展，也不会更改或扩展其服务和访问权限。所有访问和使用权限，将受下列条款与条例约束：(i) 条款与条例；(ii) 风险提示；以及(iii) 完整免责声明。请注意，网站所提供的所有讯息，仅限一般资讯用途。此外，XM所有在线交易平台的内容并不构成，也不能被用于任何未经授权的金融市场交易邀约和/或邀请。金融市场交易对于您的投资资本含有重大风险。
所有在线交易平台所发布的资料，仅适用于教育/资讯类用途，不包含也不应被视为用于金融、投资税或交易相关咨询和建议，或是交易价格纪录，或是任何金融商品或非应邀途径的金融相关优惠的交易邀约或邀请。
本网站上由XM和第三方供应商所提供的所有内容，包括意见、新闻、研究、分析、价格、其他资讯和第三方网站链接，皆保持不变，并作为一般市场评论所提供，而非投资性建议。所有在线交易平台所发布的资料，仅适用于教育/资讯类用途，不包含也不应被视为适用于金融、投资税或交易相关咨询和建议，或是交易价格纪录，或是任何金融商品或非应邀途径的金融相关优惠的交易邀约或邀请。请确保您已阅读并完全理解，XM非独立投资研究提示和风险提示相关资讯，更多详情请点击 这里。
