Shanghai Tops 70 Chinese Cities for New Home Price Gain in March

Shanghai took the lead in the race to report an increase in new home prices in March among the 70 large and medium-sized cities tracked by China's National Bureau of Statistics for housing markets.

Compared with a month earlier, Shanghai's price index for newly built commercial residential properties rose 0.3 percent in March, the highest among the 14 cities that posted a price increase, which also included Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Ningbo, according to data released today by the NBS. Two cities reported no change while the indices of the remaining 54 were tilted toward further down prices.

For secondhand homes, Beijing topped with a 0.6 percent rise in the NBS price index, followed by Shanghai and Shenzhen, both edging up by 0.4 percent. Altogether, 13 cities reported higher prices in the secondhand home sector, four remained the same, and 53 were in contraction territory.

The data provided fresh evidence about the clear divergence between first-tier and lower-tier cities in China's property market, which has been in a "transitional" phase.

Consultancy firm Goldman Sachs said in a recent analysis that it is incorrect to say either that China's property market has had a broad-based recovery or it has continued to decline.

"The key is not that the market has 'recovered' but that it has stopped moving uniformly: it is no longer moving as one cycle – it's splitting in two," it observed.

First-tier cities such as Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing were showing early signs of stabilization, supported by stronger income resilience, better liquidity, and faster policy transmission, according to the report. Meanwhile, lower-tier cities continued to face structural pressure from excess inventory, weaker demand, and slower absorption cycles.