Home prices in major cities continue to rise

BEIJING -- Home prices in China's major cities continued to rise in October despite the government's efforts in cooling the property market, official data showed on Monday.

Of a statistical pool of 70 major Chinese cities, 65 saw month-on-month rises in new home prices in October, and 62 reported price gains in existing and second-hand housing, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced in a statement.

The pace of growth in new home prices averaged 0.7 percent on a monthly basis, slowing 0.2 percentage points compared with that in September as developers ramped up supplies to meet growing demand during the traditional sales season and government tightened price regulations, explained senior NBS statistician Liu Jianwei.

On a yearly basis, all the cities except Wenzhou reported gains in new home prices.

First-tier cities continued to lead rises last month, with the prices of new homes in Beijing and Shanghai surging over 20 percent from a year ago, while prices in most second- and third-tier cities grew at a more tempered pace, according to the NBS, attributing the high growth partly to a low comparison base.

The data covers the country's large and medium-sized cities, provincial capitals and other cities.