9 Things You Should Know About China’s Sliding Real Estate Prices

It’s the statistical time of the month again, and the fresh batch of numbers from China’s National Statistics Bureau show a sixth straight month of slipping home prices for many cities in the nation.

This month’s figures show that the government’s restrictions on residential real estate transactions have taken firmer hold than ever, as rates of price decreases continued to accelerate and the trend of price falls spread to more cities.  Here are nine key points that you can take from the data:

1. 46 out of 70 major cities tracked showed decreases in home prices (This came after 45 out of 70 reported price drops in February)
2. Eight out of 70 cities recorded price increases and 16 cities had no change in prices
3. New home prices in Beijing and Shanghai each declined 0.8 percent year-on-year
4. Beijing prices dipped 0.4 percent compared to February
5. Shanghai prices dropped 0.2 percent month-on-month
6. Wenzhou, in Zhejiang province — a city renowned for its entrepreneurial millionaires, led declines with a 9 percent slump in values compared to March 2011.
7. March was the fifth-straight month that Wenzhou had led the way in price falls
8. Shenzhen prices went down 0.6 percent, while Guangzhou decreased by 0.3 percent compared to 2011.
9. March was the sixth straight month of price decreases in China’s first-tier cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen

The Statistics Bureau churns out a healthy supply of data each month related to China’s real estate markets, and here are the four latest bulletins that they published (and which provided the data that you see above).

• Price Indices of Second-Hand Residential Buildings by Floor Space in 70 Large and Medium-Sized Cities
• Price Indices of Newly Constructed Residential Buildings by Floor Space in 70 Large and Medium-Sized Cities
• Sales Price Indices of Residential Buildings in 70 Large and Medium-Sized Cities
• Sales Prices of Residential Buildings in 70 Medium and Large-sized Cities in March

I will keep updating this every month on Mingtiandi as the new data is published.  However, given that the government can be expected to keep the current housing restrictions in place until after the party meetings later this year, market watchers should anticipate at least a few more months of price decreases in China.