The number of Chinese cities seeing house prices rise continued to climb in April despite the pace slowing in the first-tier cities, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

New home prices, excluding government-funded affordable housing, rose in 65 cities last month, three more than in March, and fell in the other five, the bureau, which monitors prices in 70 cities across the country, said.

Hefei in east China’s Anhui Province led the gainers with an increase of 5.8 percent compared to March. It was followed by Xiamen in the southeastern Fujian Province where prices were up 5.3 percent, Nanjing where they rose 4.4 percent and Shanghai’s 3.6 percent.

“While home prices kept rising in more cities, the pace of growth began to slow down in gateway ones while those in second-tier and tertiary cities continued to pick up strength,” said Liu Jianwei, a senior bureau statistician.

“On average, the growth in new home prices in four first-tier cities decelerated by 0.7 percentage points last month from March and that in second and third-tier cities, in contrast, quickened by 0.3 percentage points and 0.2 percentage points from a month earlier, respectively.”

The fact that second-tier cities have generally outperformed their first-tier counterparts in price growth can be partly attributed to tightening measures in gateway cities, analysts said.

“The latest tightening policies introduced in Shanghai and Shenzhen in late March have placed an obvious impact over the local market with buyers’ sentiment being damped immediately,” said Lu Wenxi, senior research manager at Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants Co.

“Among the 40 major cities we track across the country, new home sales shrunk 20 percent last month in first-tier ones while second-tier cities suffered a milder decline of 10 percent.”

Year on year, new home prices rose in 46 cities in April, compared with 40 in March.

In the preowned market, prices gained in 51 cities in April, compared with 54 cities in March. On a year-on-year basis, they rose in 47, an increase of one from March.

(Source: shanghaidaily.com  Author: Cherry Cao)