China April home prices quicken to 8-month high

BEIJING (Reuters) -New home prices in China grew at the fastest pace in eight months in April, data showed on Monday, despite the government’s ramped-up efforts to tame the red-hot market and tackle an alarming build-up in debt.

Average new home prices in 70 major cities grew 0.6% in April from a month earlier, the quickest pace since August 2020 and a notch up from a 0.5% gain in March, according to Reuters calculations based on data released by the National Bureau of Statistics.

On a year-on-year basis, new home prices rose to an eight-month high of 4.8%, compared with 4.6% growth in March.

Real estate, a vital source of growth for China’s economy, has bounced back quickly from the COVID-19 crisis. But a relentless rise in home prices in big cities, which is now spilling over into nearby smaller ones, has raised concerns about financial risk and overheating.

The month saw authorities in a dozen cities intensify their campaigns to drive speculators out of the property market, taking more targeted steps like capping prices set by developers and preventing some real estate agencies from setting excessively high second-hand home prices.

The NBS data showed 62 cities reported monthly gains, unchanged from the tally in March.

First- and second-tier cities continued leading monthly price growth, with new home prices in those cities rising an average of 0.6% month-on-month in April, the NBS said in a statement accompanying the data.

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