© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Men stand near apartment buildings in Beijing, China, April 14, 2022. Photo taken April 14, 2022. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s new home prices rose for a fourth straight month in April, official data showed on Wednesday, but at a slower pace, as government efforts to stabilize the sector lifted sentiment after the country’s sudden exit from Covid restrictions late last year.
New home prices in April rose 0.4% month over month from 0.5% in March, according to Reuters calculations based on National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data.
The slowing pace of house price gains in April, coupled with bearish data on Tuesday that showed real estate investment and sales fell sharply, add to concerns about the strength of the recovery in a sector important to the health of the Chinese economy.
Compared to the previous year, prices fell 0.2%, which was the 12th month of decline in annual terms. Prices fell 0.8% in March.
Beijing’s aggressive stimulus policies for the crisis-hit real estate sector since November have boosted sentiment over the past few months. But uncertainty about the strength of the recovery remains amid an incomplete overall economic recovery.
As part of a broader push for the economy out of the pandemic, a growing number of Chinese cities have introduced support measures or relaxed rules for first-time homebuyers.
Last week, the China Housing Regulatory Commission issued a notice requiring local real estate brokers to reduce transaction fees for housing and rental services to promote the healthy development of the sector.
Medium-to-long-term loans to households, mostly mortgages, fell by 115.6 billion yuan ($16.72 billion) in April, according to a breakdown of credit data Thursday.
($1 = 6.9121)