China Home-Sales Growth Slows in Latest Sign Property Is Cooling

(Bloomberg) -- China new-home sales rose at the slowest pace in six months in October, adding to signs the once-booming property market is cooling.

• New-home sales by value, excluding government-subsidized affordable housing, rose 9.9 percent last month from a year earlier, according to Bloomberg calculations based on data released Wednesday by the National Bureau of Statistics.

Key Insights

• A downturn in the property sector would be a further drag on the world’s second-biggest economy, which is already grappling with the slowest growth in almost a decade and a trade war with the U.S.
• Bearish signs are piling up for the housing market -- the data showed new-home sales by area fell 1.3 percent from a year earlier, and new starts, a leading indicator of real estate investment, slumped to a one-year low.
• Analysts are also adding to the gloom. China International Capital Corp. says the property market faces a “year of recession,” with new starts estimated to slump 10 percent in 2019.
• Attention will now turn to Thursday’s home price data. Last month’s report showed price slowed for the first time in seven months, as the government keeps a tight grip over the housing market, in line with President Xi Jinping’s mantra that homes should be for living in, not speculating on.

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• For more details on China’s October economic data, click here

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Emma Dong in Shanghai at edong10@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Katrina Nicholas at knicholas2@bloomberg.net, Peter Vercoe, Paul Panckhurst

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