China's home prices continue to stabilize

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China's property market continued to show signs of cooling down as home prices were falling or posting slower growth in major cities amid tough control policies, official data showed Monday.

On a yearly basis, of the 70 cities surveyed in September, the pace of new home price growth slowed in 15 major cities, with rate down by 1.8 - 8.8 percentage points, compared with the same month of last year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said.

On a month-on-month basis, new home prices fell or remained flat in the 15 cities in September, according to the NBS data.

In September, both new home prices and prices for existing homes in the first-tier cities fell 0.2 percent month-on-month, and year-to-year growth rate respectively down by 3.5 and 3.8 percentage points, compared to that in August.

For second and third-tier cities, the pace of both new and existing home price growth continued slowing compared with September in 2016.

China’s property market will continue stabilizing in the fourth quarter of this year and seeing a slower growth in transaction volume and stabilizing prices, Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development Wang Menghui said at a Sunday press conference on the sidelines of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

"We will firmly maintain our position that houses are for living in, not for speculation," he said. The government will not waver in its efforts to achieve the goals of property market regulation and will maintain policy continuity and stability, according to Wang.

Wang pledged to move faster to put in a housing system in place that ensures supply through multiple sources, provides housing support through multiple channels, and encourages both housing purchase and renting.