Home prices still rising in major cities

Some top-tier cities are likely to miss targets set at the beginning of the year to stabilize home prices, as prices in China's 100 major cities continued to rise in October, a survey showed on Friday.

Despite government measures to tame runaway home prices and prevent housing inflation from eroding residents' spending power and living quality, prices have not shown any sign of a downward correction, according to a report from the China Index Academy, the research arm of SouFun Holdings Ltd, the owner of the nation's biggest real estate website.

In October, the average price of new homes in China's 100 major cities stood at 10,685 yuan ($1,741) per square meter, up 1.24 percent month-on-month and rising for 17 consecutive months since June 2012.

Out of the 100 cities, 75 saw price hikes compared with last month, 24 reported declines, and prices were only flat in one city.

On a year-on-year basis, the average home price in the 100 cities rose 10.69 percent in October, with the growth rate up 1.21 percentage points from September.

According to the report, the average new home price in top-10 cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, was 18,533 yuan per sq m in October, up 1.95 percent from September and 15.69 percent from the previous year, both exceeding national levels.

On the secondary housing market, the major 10 cities also saw bullish transaction prices.

In October, Shenzhen topped the list for increases in pre-owned home prices, with a 2.31 percent rise from September and a 24.09 percent year-on-year hike.

In the same month, Beijing saw its pre-owned home prices rise 23.90 percent year-on-year, only lagging Shenzhen and followed by Guangzhou, further pricing potential homebuyers out of the market.

The rapid rise of home prices in major cities has almost foiled local governments' efforts to achieve their price-control targets for 2013, said Ding Zuyu, executive president of E-House (China) Holdings Ltd.

For instance, the Beijing municipal government set a target to keep home prices steady in 2013 compared with last year, but in the first three quarters alone, prices were up by an aggregate 24.39 percent, according to data compiled by the Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolis Daily.

Likewise, the governments of Guangzhou and Shenzhen had targets to keep the growth of home prices below that of residents' disposable incomes, but prices there rose 21.33 percent and 18.84 percent, respectively, in the January-September period compared with last year, which made those goals impossible to achieve.

wang_ying@chinadaily.com.cn