Slight increase in new home prices across China

During last month the cost of new residential property in China improved for the first time since September 2011. A survey, from leading real estate website SouFun Holdings, based on home prices across 100 cities show a slight increase of 0.1 per cent from May through June; perhaps not surprisingly the largest gains were recorded in Beijing a rise of 2.3 per cent during the month. The government are on track to continue with constraints on home ownership to curtail speculative investors but have also eased its monetary policies to boost the economy and have pledged to support first home buyers. Last month the central bank cut the benchmark one year lending rate for the first time in four years which has no doubt helped to boost confidence in the property market. Several of China’s larger residential developers report a rise in sales in the year ending in May and some have withdrawn discount packages following the upsurge in sales activity.