China March new home prices fall at fastest pace since August 2015

Reuters
1 min read
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BEIJING, April 16 (Reuters) - China's new home prices in March fell at the fastest pace in more than eight years, official data showed on Tuesday, underlining frail housing market conditions despite Beijing's continuous efforts to lift demand with supportive policies.

New home prices fell 2.2% year-on-year, marking the deepest pace since August 2015, faster than a 1.4% fall in February, according to Reuters calculations based on National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data.

Prices fell 0.3% month-on-month, matching a drop in February.

Authorities have been ramping up measures to prop up the troubled property sector, including relaxing home purchase curbs, supporting urban village renovation, and pushing banks to quicken new loan approvals to cash-strapped private property developers.

But analysts say many of these policies are piecemeal in nature or have only limited short-term impact, which in turn is keeping home buying sentiment in check and curbing a broader full-blown recovery.

(Reporting by Ella Cao, Liangping Gao and Ryan Woo Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Jacqueline Wong)

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