Property market won’t rebound till next March: expert   

专家：中国楼市不温不火行情或持续至明年初

“9月延续了上一个月房价环比上涨城市数量减少的态势，中国房地产市场短期内保持稳定温和的发展是大概率事件。”北京大学房地产研究所所长陈国强在接受中新社记者采访时如是说。

Beijing (CNS)—The sluggish state of China's real estate market will remain unchanged in the short term, according to Chen Guoqiang, director of the Real Estate Research Institute of Peking University.

In September, 31 cities out of a statistical pool of 70 major cities recorded higher new housing prices than a month earlier, according to statistics released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Thursday.

Compared with August, home prices in 24 cities declined in September, while 15 cities saw their home prices unchanged, the data showed.

Chen said the government's restricted home purchasing policy and its impact on the expectations of buyers are the major reasons behind the grim housing market this month, which is typically a hot month for real estate.

Because there is greater supply than demand in the markets of several cities, housing prices in China won't see a major fluctuation this year, Chen predicted.

At the same time, among the 70 cities monitored by the bureau for real estate trends, 35 cities reported higher prices for second-hand homes in September than in August. 18 saw month-on-month price decreases, and another 17 saw second-hand house prices unchanged, the data showed.

September saw a downturn in both the new house price index and second-hand house price index in the 70 major cities, which demonstrates a stable trend in terms of housing prices, said Zhang Xu, an analyst at Homelink, a Beijing-based real estate brokerage.

Against such a backdrop, the sluggish real estate market will remain unchanged until March next year, Zhang added.