BEIJING — New-home prices in Shanghai were 2.8% higher in September than a year earlier. In Luzhou they were 7.6% lower. Both readings come from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) tables for 70 Chinese cities, stamped 09:30 on Monday, and the distance between them is what the September data are about.
By TEH’s count of those tables, new-home prices fell month on month in 49 of the 70 cities, rose in 17 and were unchanged in four. Against a year earlier, 64 cities were lower, five higher and one level. TEH reported in July that property was the clearest explanation for the weak household demand behind China’s slowest growth since the 2022 lockdowns.
Resale homes moved more. Prices fell month on month in 59 cities and rose in nine. Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Shanghai were among the nine. Shanghai was also the only city where resale prices stood above their level of a year earlier, by 0.8%. Xinhua’s one-line summary of the release said year-on-year declines in major cities narrowed.
September is the last reading before China’s first central-government interest subsidy on commercial housing loans. Xinhua reported the subsidy starts on October 1, at one percentage point a year for eligible first-time buyers, for a tentative year. Whatever it does to prices cannot show in these tables.
Across Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen the pattern is mixed. New-home prices rose 0.3% on the month in Shenzhen, 0.2% in Guangzhou and 0.2% in Shanghai, while Beijing’s fell 0.2%. Year on year, Beijing is down 2.7%, Shenzhen 1.0% and Guangzhou 1.1%.
Prices elsewhere moved the other way. China’s factory prices rose 5.0% year on year in September, the NBS said on October 14.
The counts above are TEH’s, taken from index readings rounded to one decimal, and the release carries no such tally. Its notes say the new-home index covers urban districts only and draws on local contract registrations, while the resale index combines agency and platform reports with field price collection, and a city with no transactions is treated as unchanged. The tables carry no national average.
They also cannot say how many homes changed hands. Whether September’s firmer resale prices in the big cities sit on thinner or thicker sales is not yet known.
