New home prices defy curbs

Construction workers at a housing project site in Chongqing. Home prices saw their 13th consecutive increase in June, with the national average rising to 10,258 yuan ($1,673) per square meter. LUO GUOJIA / FOR CHINA DAILY

Robust urban demand in June thwarts policy efforts

Driven by robust home demand in major cities, China's new home prices jumped for the 13th consecutive month in June, defying the government's tightened property curbs.

According to the China Index Academy, a Beijing-based real estate research body, the average price in 100 Chinese cities posted a 0.77 percent rise from May, to 10,258 yuan ($1,673) per square meter.

The gain in June was 0.04 percentage point lower than in May, the report said.

The city of Changshu in eastern Jiangsu province had the biggest gain last month compared with May, with prices up 3.6 percent.

Prices in the top 10 cities rose 1.01 percent month-on-month and 9.93 percent year-on-year. Guangzhou saw the largest rise among the 10 cities, with a 2.74 percent increase from the previous month.

Home values in Beijing jumped 1.6 percent from the previous month, while those in Shanghai increased 0.6 percent.

"Since the government began to impose house purchase limits in 2010, demand has been constrained. Now, the surge is the result of the continuous unleashing of repressed demand," said Zhang Huifang, a professor at Ningbo University who specializes in property economics.

He Tian, the head of research at the China Index Academy, said robust housing demand was reflected in strong home sales in recent months. Figures from the National Bureau of Statistics show that from January to May, new home sales surged 35.6 percent year-on-year.

Figures from the academy indicate that first-half home sales soared more than 40 percent.

The land market in China is also hot, a situation that is expected to add upward pressure on home prices.

According to real estate service provider Centaline Group, land transfer fees in the country's four major cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen) in the first five months of this year were 141.18 billion yuan, up 350 percent year-on-year.