China's urban property prices rose 10.1 percent in April from a year earlier, slightly lower than in March, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said yesterday.

The average property prices in 70 large- and medium-sized cities dipped by 0.6 percentage point in April from a month earlier. Last year, property prices rose 7.6 percent year-on-year.

Prices of ordinary new buildings rose 11.4 percent year-on-year while those of middle and high-end properties rose 12.7 percent, according to the statement.

"Based on our statistics of the middle- and high-end markets, the recent price trend remains

Workers toll at a housing site in Jiangsu Province

stable," said Carlby Xie, head of research at the Colliers International's Beijing branch, a real estate services company. "I would call it 'stagnant' if we see the situation in terms of purchase price."

Xie said people have remained reluctant to purchase houses, anticipating a price correction after the Olympic Games in August. "The purchase sentiment could possibly rebound by the year-end."

"I think it's more worthwhile to rent a house than purchasing one," said Ge Yanjing, a 27-year-old computer technician in a major securities firm in Beijing, where house prices rose by 16.1 percent year-on-year in April. He hasn't bought any house.

"The overall price rise is fast and the State may issue new policies to contain it," he said.

Prices of existing homes rose 10.3 percent in April.

The NBS said urban fixed-assets investment rose 25.7 percent in the first four months year-on-year, compared with a 25.9 percent increase in the first quarter. Last year, the growth was 25.8 percent.

The bureau did not release the figure for only April. Song Yu and Liang Hong with Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong have calculated in a research note that investment in April was up 25.3 percent from a year earlier, compared with 27.3 percent in March. "The underlying growth momentum of fixed-assets investment has been robust," They said.

The softening growth in April could have been distorted by the public holiday adjustments this year (the May Day "golden week" has been replaced by three traditional holidays in April, June and September), which resulted in fewer working days in April of this year compared with last year, they said.

(China Daily May 16, 2008)