Beijing high-end housing market retreats in Q1

High-end residential market in Beijing experienced downturn in sales volume and price in the first quarter, fresh evidence of slowdown of the red-hot housing market, said the world's leading real estate consulting company DTZ.

At the beginning of 2014, affected by the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday and tightening credit, there was a decrease in both transaction volume and average price in the Beijing high-end residential market, the company said in a latest report.

The average high-end housing price in Beijing dropped by 5.45 percent quarter on quarter to 49,287.77 yuan (about 8,014 U.S. dollars) per square meter in the first quarter, but still represented an increase of 13.26 percent year on year, according to data from DTZ.

The high-end housing transaction volume in Beijing plunged by 23.85 percent quarter on quarter in the first three months, to reach 181,904.01 square meters, a decrease of 17.88 percent year-on-year.

Across the country, China's property market has been showing signs of cooling down in recent months.