China's home prices remain stable in June

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Home prices in major Chinese cities remained stable in June as local governments stuck to strengthened property curbs, official data showed Tuesday.

On a yearly basis, new residential housing prices in four first-tier cities including Beijing and Shanghai stayed flat from a year ago, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement on its website.

Price growth of new homes in 31 second-tier cities expanded by 0.9 percentage point from that in May, while that of 35 third-tier cities remained the same as in May, according to the NBS data based on a survey of 70 cities.

New residential housing prices in first-tier cities increased 0.6 percent month-to-month, with prices in Guangzhou and Shenzhen going up 1.9 percent and 0.3 percent respectively.

"Guangzhou's prices were the lowest among the top-tier cities so buyers felt there's still investment value," said Joe Zhou, head of research for commercial property agency JLL China.

"Investing in real estate still remains a profitable business in China despite the curbs," he said.

“In June, local governments…didn’t relax their efforts. They continued to strictly implement various tightening measures to promote the healthy development of the real estate market," said Liu Jianwei, senior statistician of NBS.

"Several rounds of tightening measures had gradually stabilized the market in the previous year," Zhang Dawei, an analyst with property agency Centaline, wrote in a note after the data release.

"But many cities' recent moves to attract talent and introduce a lottery system have created arbitrage opportunities and weakened existing curbs," Zhang said.

The country will further strengthen and improve macroeconomic regulation and control, and accelerate the promotion of property tax-related policy measures as well as equal rights between tenants and property owners.

(With inputs from Xinhua and Reuters)