China home-price recovery spreads to more cities amid easing

[SHANGHAI] China's home-price recovery spread to more cities in December, especially smaller ones, after authorities rolled out easing measures targeting regions with a surplus of unsold homes.

New-home prices climbed in 39 cities, compared with 33 in November, among the 70 cities tracked by the government, the National Bureau of Statistics said Monday. They dropped in 26 cities, compared with 27 in November, and were unchanged in five.

China's politburo, the top decision-making body of the Communist Party, last month vowed to reduce home inventory as one of its key tasks in 2016, prompting expectation of more easing measures. The area of unsold new homes nationwide increased 12 per cent from a year earlier to 441 million square meters as of Nov 30, according to the latest available data from the statistics bureau.

Prices in December gained month-on-month in 51 cities among the 100 tracked by SouFun Holdings Ltd, which owns China's biggest property website. That was 10 more than in November. Average new-home prices rose 0.74 per cent in December from November.

BLOOMBERG