Home prices in July fall in majority of Chinese cities

[SHANGHAI] China's new-home prices fell in July in almost all cities that the government tracks as tight mortgage lending deterred buyers even as local governments eased property curbs.

Prices fell in 64 of the 70 cities last month from June, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday, the most since January 2011 when the government changed the way it compiles the data.

Beijing prices fell one per cent from June, posting the first monthly decline since April 2012.

"The falling trend of China's property market has no sign of improving," Shen Jian-guang, Hong Kong-based chief Asia economist at Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd, said in an interview yesterday. "The key issue is the mortgages, despite all types of local government easings. The high rate is damping se…