Property prices in top cities remain flat

BEIJING - Property prices in three first-tier cities - Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen - were flat on a monthly basis in July, the first time this has happened in three years, as rigorous tightening policies started to bite.

New home prices in the three cities were the same in July as they were in June, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Thursday.

"The figures clearly point to a falling trend in property prices," Zhang Dawei, chief researcher with Centaline Group, a Hong Kong-based real estate agency, said.