China's housing market continued to cool in January as new home prices in 20 cities fell from the previous month, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Wednesday.
Among 15 first- and second-tier cities with overheated property markets, new home prices fell on a monthly basis in 11 localities, according to the NBS, which tracks home prices in 70 cities every month. The declines ranged from 0.1 to 0.5 of a percentage point.
Home prices rose in 45 cities in January, and 46 cities reported housing price growth in late December, the data showed. Prices were flat in five cites.
New home prices in Guangzhou, capital of South China's Guangdong Province, rose 0.6 percent month-on-month in January, but the pace of growth has fallen for the last four months straight, Liu Jianwei, a senior NBS statistician, said in a statement.
First-tier cities refer to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen in Guangdong Province.
Liu said that local governments' home buying restrictions have clearly led to the drop in property prices and stabilized the domestic real estate market.
