China's home price rise continues to slow

BEIJING -- New home prices continued to see slower rises in Chinese cities last month, according to official data released Tuesday.

Of a statistical pool of 70 major Chinese cities, 65 saw new home prices increase month on month in May, down from 67 cities in April, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement on its website.

The data show that new home prices in 34 cities saw slower month-on-month rises compared with April. Fuzhou, Zhengzhou, Guangzhou and Chengdu saw price rises narrow by at least 0.6 percentage points.

In May, prices of existing homes rose in 64 cities month on month, down from 66 cities in April, the statement said. A total of 30 cities saw slower rises from April.

Liu Jianwei, a senior statistician with the NBS, attributed the slowing price rises last month to the effects of recent property tightening measures.

Chinese property prices started to rebound in the second half of 2012, shored up by the country's pro-growth policies, including two interest rate cuts.

Runaway prices led the government to issue a guideline in early March to tighten its grip on the real estate sector. The guideline included higher transactions taxes, higher interest rates and down payment requirements for purchases of second homes.

Home prices rose in more cities in May on a year-on-year basis, according to NBS data.

Prices of new homes rose in 69 cities in May, up from 68 cities in April, while prices for existing homes rose in 67 cities, up from 64 cities in April.

Liu said the fast year-on-year growth was partly due to a low base number in May 2012.

As most cities are still seeing prices increase, the government should continue to promote the effective implementation of existing tightening measures, Liu said.