China's home price growth slowed for the fourth straight month as demand cooled further in its biggest cities, a welcome sign for policymakers as they seek to defuse bubbles in the world's second-largest economy amid an explosive growth in debt. Over the past year, authorities have slapped curbs on China's property sector - a major contributor to the broader economy - as the concentration of price surges in the country's wealthiest cities stoked fears of a nasty crash.
The January data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) suggests regulators are making steady progress in keeping the riskier speculative investors off the property market, with average new home prices in China's 70 major cities up 0.2 percent month-on-month, slowing a touch from December's 0.3 percent rise. That marked the fourth month of slowing monthly growth, with analysts expecting further falls in the year ahead. Compared with a year ago, home prices still rose 12.2 percent, just off December's 12.4 percent gain. In China's biggest cities, Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing prices rose 18.2 percent, 23.8 percent and 24.7 percent, respectively, from a year earlier, but Shanghai and Shenzhen's monthly pace slowed as local governments' tightening measures knocked demand.
All the same, a more subdued housing market may mean China will be even more reliant on infrastructure spending to boost economic growth.