In September, housing prices in China's first-tier cities continued to decline month-on-month while prices in many second- and third-tier cities also continued to fall, according to official data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday.
Out of 70 major cities surveyed, housing prices in first-tier cities continued to decline in September, while prices in second- and third-tier cities either continued to fall or stayed at August levels, the data posted on the NBS's official website noted.
For example, in first-tier cities, prices for new and secondhand homes declined by 0.2 percent in September, posting a consecutive 12-month decline streak, NBS statistician Liu Jianwei was quoted as saying in the website post.
The NBS data also shows that new home prices fell or remained flat on a month-on-month basis across all the 70 cities monitored.
Meanwhile, commercial housing prices in particular across the 70 cities continued to decline or stayed flat month-on-month and year-on-year, the NBS said.
"In September, based on local situations, each city applied real estate control policies. As a result, real estate markets in only 15 out of the 70 major cities monitored continued to remain stable," Liu said.
Decline rates for all first-tier cities in September and August were 3.5 and 3.8 percentage points, respectively.
Furthermore, year-on-year home price decline rates in 15 of the 70 major cities monitored ranged from 1.8 percent to 8.8 percent.
"Regulations over the past year has been effective in different cities. Particularly, the policy for limiting purchases and tightening loans has played an important role in curbing speculative demand for investment," Yan Yuejin, senior researcher at the E-house China R&D Institute told the Global Times on Monday.
