The average price of housing in seventy large- and medium-sized cities increased by 10.3 percent in July on the level of the same period last year, down from the 11.4 percent growth in June, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced on its website Tuesday.

It was the third consecutive month that the annual pace of the growth in the country’s house prices slowed and the lowest annual growth rate in six months.

House prices in the 70 large- and medium-sized cities grew at an annualized rate of 12.4 percent in May and 12.8 percent in April this year.

On a monthly basis, the price of housing in the seventy cities remained unchanged.

The prices of newly-constructed housing rose 12.9 percent from a year earlier in July, down 1.2 percentage points from the level recorded in June. Meanwhile, prices of second-hand homes rose 6.7 percent, down 1 percentage point from the pace of growth registered last month.

The value of commercial house sales in July fell 19.3 percent from a year earlier to 306.6 billion yuan and sales by floor space also dropped 15.4 percent from a year earlier to 64.66 million square meters.

The NBS also revealed data related to investment in the real estate market.

In July, investment in the real estate sector climbed 33 percent year-on-year, to 411.8 billion yuan.

Over the first seven months of this year, investment in the real estate construction totaled 2.38 trillion yuan, up 37.2 percent from the same period last year.

Property developers raised a total of 3.88 trillion yuan of funds to invest in real estate in the first seven months of this, the NBS said.

Of the total funds raised so far, 753.9 billion yuan originated from bank loans to developers and 513.1 billion yuan was sourced from the loans to individuals.

The government began to implement policies in April aimed at reining in soaring house prices, these included cutting the discount offered on the interest rates to all home buyers, tighter scrutiny of developers' financing and larger down payments for loans issued to second and third-home buyers.

China New Service yesterday reported that China Banking Regulatory Commission had recently “suggested” to commercial banks in the four cities of Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen and Hangzhou to stop providing housing loans to third-home buyers.

Local media in the four cities all reported that banks there have suspended the issuance of mortgage loans to third-home buyer.

Links and Sources
National Bureau of Statistics: Report on Housing Prices from Jan-July 2010 (Chinese)
Sina: Graph

This article was edited by Paul Pennay