China’s Housing Market Woes Deepen Despite Stimulus

By Rebecca Feng and Jason Douglas
The Wall Street Journal
June 17, 2024
Category: Finance & Economics
Region: International

China’s broken housing market isn’t responding to some of the country’s boldest stimulus measures to date—at least not yet. The Chinese government has been stepping up support for housing and other industries in recent months as it tries to revitalize an economy that has continued to disappoint since the early days of the pandemic. But fresh data for May showed that businesses and consumers remain cautious. Home prices continue to fall at an accelerating rate, and fixed-asset investment and industrial production, while growing, lost some momentum. …In major cities, new-home prices fell 4.3% in May compared with a year earlier, worse than a 3.5% decline in April. Prices in China’s secondhand home market tumbled 7.5%, compared with a 6.8% drop in April. Home sales by value tumbled 30.5% in the first five months of this year compared with the same months last year. [to access the full story a WSJ subscription is required]

Read More