China: Property prices gain further in August – Nomura

In China, the simple average of property price inflation across 70 cities continued to rise in August, gaining 0.3 percentage points (pp) to 1.5% m-o-m, marking its second-highest month-on-month growth since 2011 (the highest was 1.8% in September 2016), notes the research team at Nomura.

Key Quotes

“The price gains were broadly distributed. Property price inflation in Tier-1 cities edged up by 0.1pp to 0.4% m-o-m in August.”

“Property price gains in Tier-2 cities also picked up by 0.1pp to 1.3% m-o-m.”

“Despite strong home price inflation data in August, growth of property sales in volume terms slowed significantly to 2.4% y-o-y from 9.9% in July.”

“The mixed property data point to uncertainty over the property sector’s outlook. We remain cautious and continue to harbour doubts over the sustainability of strong property price inflation.”