BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s new home prices rose for the first time month-on-month since September in January, official data showed on Monday, as efforts by authorities to soften the blow from tough regulatory curbs on the sector supported buyer sentiment.
Average new home prices in China’s 70 major cities rose 0.1% month-on-month in January, compared with a 0.2% drop in December, according to Reuters calculations from data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
New home prices rose 2.3% in January against the same period last year, slower than the 2.6% growth recorded in December.
China’s property market, accounting for a quarter of gross domestic product by some metrics, has slowed due to Beijing’s push to cut leverage in the sector amid defaults at heavily-indebted players such as China Evergrande Group.
(Reporting by Liangping Gao and Ryan Woo; Editing by Sam Holmes)
