China's home prices fall in December

BEIJING, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- Major Chinese cities reported falling home prices in December compared to the previous month, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed Wednesday.

In the four first-tier cities, namely Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, prices of new homes edged down 0.4 percent last month, while that of resold homes dropped 1.1 percent, according to the data.

Prices of both new homes and resold homes in 31 second-tier cities and 35 third-tier cities in general also went down in December from a month earlier, the data showed.

On a year-on-year basis, new home prices witnessed mixed performances in Chinese cities in December.

For new homes, first-tier cities saw prices down 0.1 percent; second-tier cities saw marginal price increases; and smaller cities reported a 1.8 percent price decline.

For resold homes, there were declines across the board in prices in December year on year, according to the data.

NBS data released on Wednesday also showed that in 2023, property development investment stood at 11.09 trillion yuan (about 1.56 trillion U.S. dollars), with investment in residential housing projects hitting 8.38 trillion yuan.

Meanwhile, the total sales value of commercial housing reached 11.66 trillion yuan, the data showed.