China's housing market remained stable overall in July, with home prices in 70 major cities registering slower month-on-month growth, official data showed on Friday.
New home prices in four first-tier cities -- Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen -- rose 0.5 percent month-on-month in July.
The growth rate was 0.1 percentage point lower than the previous month, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
Yangzhou, Xuzhou, Wuxi and Nanjing, the four cities in Jiangsu listed under the national monitoring scheme, saw slight increase in new home and second home prices in July.
Nanjing house prices rose by 4.9% year-on-year, the fifth consecutive month of month-on-month increase, though the growth rate is falling.
In July, local governments maintained the principle that "housing is for living in, not for speculation," and hence did not use the property market as a form of short-term stimulus to prop up the economy, said Kong Peng, a senior NBS statistician.
The 70 Chinese cities tracked by the bureau reported a new home price growth of 0.5 percent on a monthly basis, and by 4.8 percent on a yearly basis, both slower than the figures in June.
(Source:ourjiangsu.com)
