China: Flat property price inflation in October – Nomura

Analysts at Nomura note that China’s simple average of property price inflation across 70 cities remained at 1.0% m-o-m in October, unchanged from September.

Key Quotes

“The number of cities with sequentially higher prices rose to 65 in October from 64 in September, leaving five with lower or flat prices.”

“Property prices remained flat in Tier-1 cities, with inflation at 0.0% m-o-m for a second month.”

“Property price inflation edged down to 0.8% m-o-m from 0.9% in Tier-2 cities and ticked up to 1.2% from 1.1% in lower-tier cities, possibly supported by a surge in pledged supplementary lending (PSL; net increase of RMB74.1bn from RMB12.5bn in September).”

“Despite stable property price inflation in October, we expect the property sector to cool significantly in 2019, as: 1) tightening measures in large cities will not be reversed quickly unless there are signs of a sharp decline; and 2) support from PSL to lowertier cities cannot continue indefinitely.”