China's new home prices stabilise with stimulus push

By Liangping Gao, Yukun Zhang and Ryan Woo

BEIJING (Reuters) -China's new homes prices stopped falling in December for the first time in 18 months, official data showed on Friday, after the government rolled out multiple rounds of stimulus to lift the property sector from a prolonged slump.

That stood in contrast to a 0.1% decline month-on-month in November, as calculated by Reuters based on data from China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). On an annual basis, new home prices fell 5.3% following a 5.7% drop in the preceding month.

Home sales have slumped in China since the property market was hit by a crisis in 2021. Debt-laden property developers have been struggling to repay their borrowings and deliver pre-sold homes, dampening confidence in the sector.

Beijing rolled out a slew of measures in the second half of last year to support the real estate market, including cutting mortgage rates and allowing local governments to buy unsold housing units and idle land with special bond proceeds.

These policies have contributed to stabilising real estate expectations, with some cities, especially first-tier ones, showing signs of recovery, said Zhang Dawei, an analyst at property agency Centaline. However, he cautioned that the overall property market had not yet bottomed out.

Zhang expected more supportive policies to come in March, possibly including further reductions in mortgage rates, easing of home-buying restrictions and cuts in transaction taxes and fees.

Risks in China's real estate market have been significantly mitigated, the country's central bank governor said on Monday. That view was supported by the steady month-on-month prices and price increases in first-tier cities in December.

Out of the 70 cities surveyed by the NBS, 23 cities saw an increase in home prices, six more than the previous month.

Nevertheless, despite the government's efforts to strengthen the sector through various means, the fundamental problems facing most developers have hardly eased in the past three years.

"The property sector is still under pressure and authorities don't want to see a return to the old days of leverage and big price rises, so investors still need to be patient," said Ben Bennett, Asia-Pacific Investment Strategist at Legal And General Investment Management.

Additional property-related data released on Friday indicated continuing sluggishness in the supply side of the Chinese real estate market. Property investment in 2024 fell 10.6% from the previous year, marking the largest annual decline on record, according to separate official data.

Moreover, property sales and new construction starts, measured by floor area, fell 12.9% and 23.0% respectively in 2024, signalling persistent challenges for the Chinese real estate sector in the foreseeable future.

(Reporting by Liangping Gao, Yukun Zhang and Ryan Woo; Editing by Sonali Paul)