House prices have fallen across most of China’s hottest property markets for the first time in almost two years, marking an end to the enormous growth that saw prices rise as much as 40 per cent last year.
Prices of newly built residential properties dropped between 0.1 and 0.4 per cent in December from the previous month in 12 out of 15 “hotspots”, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics yesterday.
Price rises in cities such as Shanghai and Beijing had reached 5 per cent a month last August. Investors had piled into the housing market, especially after a dramatic stock rout in 2015, seeing property as one of a few options left for high returns on the mainland.