April new home prices down y-o-y for 8th straight month

Hong Kong

CHINA'S new home prices fell for the eighth consecutive month in April from a year earlier but were flat from March, adding to hopes that a property downturn which is weighing heavily on the economy is beginning to bottom out.

But analysts warned that any recovery in the market will take some time given a huge inventory of unsold homes, and said that the property sector remains the biggest risk to the world's second-largest economy, which looks set for its worst year in 25 years.

That will keep pressure on policymakers to roll out more interest rate cuts and other stimulus measures later this year to boost a…