Government stimulus policies contribute to trend
The nation's housing market continued to recover in April with prices in second-tier cities rising faster than those in first-tier cities, a situation that experts said on Wednesday reflected government stimulus policies to cut inventories.
Of the 70 large and medium-sized cities surveyed, 46 recorded new home price increases year-on-year and 23 recorded falls, compared with 40 rises and 29 falls in March, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Wednesday.
The NBS said 47 cities had year-on-year price rises for existing homes, up from 46 in March, and only 22 saw falls, one less than in March.
Price gains accelerated in first- and second-tier cities, Liu Jianwei, a senior statistician at the NBS, said in a statement on the agency's website.
"Simulative measures, such as interest rate cuts and tax policies have helped boost the recovery of China's real estate market," said Yin Kunhua, a professor at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.
In February, the government announced tax cuts for some types of property transactions and a further reduction in the minimum down payments for some eligible first- and second-time home buyers.
"Both the central government and local governments have paid a lot of attention to cutting inventory in the real estate sector, a core industry of China's economy that drives many upstream and downstream industries such as the steel industry," Yin told the Global Times on Wednesday.
Xia Dan, a research fellow with the Bank of Communications, agreed.
"The real estate sector has an irreplaceable core position in stabilizing China's economy," Xia said in a note sent to the Global Times Wednesday.
According to Yin, the recovery in China's real estate sector, which began in the second half of 2015, will continue in the longer term amid the nation's urbanization.
The NBS figures also showed that on a monthly basis, 65 cities saw new home prices rise in April, climbing from 62 in March, while only five saw declines, three less than in last month, the NBS data showed.
As for existing homes, 51 cities recorded price gains on a month-on-month basis in April, while 10 had price falls.
The month-on-month increase for both new homes and existing homes in China's four first-tier cities narrowed while increases in the second- and third-tier cities widened, according to Liu, the statistician at NBS.
The four first-tier cities are Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou and Shenzhen in South China's Guangdong Province.
In the case of Shenzhen, there was even a 0.4 percent month-on-month price decline in April for existing homes, according to NBS data.
