Curb speculation to cool house prices

ACCORDING TO THE NATIONAL BUREAU OF STATISTICS, China's real estate market continued to show signs of cooling last month, as home prices in major cities fell or experienced slower growth. Beijing Youth Daily commented on Wednesday:

The growth of home prices in 15 first-and second-tier cities cooled in August, thanks to a combination of measures taken to curb speculation over the past year. On a month-on-month basis, they fell or remained flat in 13 cities in August, a novelty in the Chinese real estate market for many months.

That, however, may not necessarily herald a turning point despite the consistency of efforts to rein in property prices. The meager decline in new home prices in some cities is not enough to support the prediction that house prices will fall in the coming months.