New home sales in China continued to slow down the growth in the first two months of this year as tightening policies were strictly enforced in first and major second-tier cities.
Between January and February, 912.1 billion yuan ($132 billion) of new homes, excluding government-funded affordable housing, were sold across the country, a year-on-year increase of 22.7 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement yesterday. But the gain slowed from the 36.1 percent rise in 2016.
The area of new homes sold during the two-month period rose 23.7 percent from a year earlier to 124.39 million square meters. The rise, however, accelerated from the 22.4 percent gain last year, according to the bureau's data.
Between January and February, the area of new homes sold in non-core Chinese cities jumped 35.9 percent year on year, up 14 percentage points from the same period a year earlier.
China's investment in property development grew 8.9 percent year on year in the first two months of this year, 2 percentage points faster than the overall growth rate of 2016, the bureau also said.
For residential properties, investment rose 9 percent year on year, and the floor space of new housing construction grew 14.8 percent from a year ago.
Property investment in central China grew faster than in eastern and western regions.
Stringent housing measures, including stricter home purchase curbs and higher down payment requirement, have remained in place with no signs of loosening since being unveiled in September in dozens of cities to cool overheated housing markets.
