The Chinese real estate market continues to struggle. The latest data shows that in February, new housing prices in first-tier cities dropped by 3% year-on-year, while second-hand housing prices fell by 4.9%. In second-tier cities, new housing prices dropped by 4.7% and second-hand housing prices by 7.4%; with even larger decreases in third-tier cities.
On March 17th, the National Bureau of Statistics of the Chinese Communist Party released data on the price changes of residential properties in 70 major and mid-sized cities for the month of February.
The data reveals that in first-tier cities, new housing sales prices decreased by 3.0% year-on-year, narrowing by 0.4 percentage points compared to the previous month. Specifically, in Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, prices dropped by 5.5%, 7.8%, and 4.4% respectively; while second-hand housing sales prices decreased by 4.9%, with Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen seeing declines of 2.9%, 2.1%, 9.4%, and 5.3% respectively.
In second-tier cities, new housing sales prices dropped by 4.7% year-on-year, a decrease of 0.3% compared to the previous month; while second-hand housing sales prices dropped by 7.4%, a decrease of 0.2% from the previous month.
For third-tier cities, new housing and second-hand housing sales prices both decreased by 5.9% and 8.0% year-on-year respectively, with decreases of 0.1 and 0.2 percentage points respectively compared to the previous month.
In February, out of the 70 major and mid-sized cities, housing prices dropped year-on-year in 68 cities, consistent with January; while 45 cities experienced a month-on-month decrease, higher than the 42 cities in January.
It’s worth noting that official data released by the Chinese Communist Party often conceals unfavorable situations, and the actual data may be even worse.
According to calculations based on the data published by the National Bureau of Statistics of the Chinese Communist Party, The Wall Street Journal reports that in February, the average housing prices in the 70 major and mid-sized cities decreased by 0.14% month-on-month, compared to a decrease of 0.07% in January, indicating an increased decline; with a year-on-year decrease of 5.2%, slightly lower than January’s 5.4%.