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Double Checking China's Housing Price Data
Is China’s notoriously unreliable house price data swinging into line with reality?
The latest numbers from the National Bureau of Statistics show average house prices in February up just 0.2% compared to a year ago, and falling 0.1% month-to-month, the fifth month-to-month fall in a row.
A look at the prices from China’s top developers, though, suggests that the official data might still be missing some of the ups and downs. Take giant China Overseas Land & Investment. Their 2011 report came out last week and showed average prices at around 12,900 yuan per square meter, up about 18% compared to 2010.
Looking at three of China’s biggest developers China Vanke, China Overseas and Evergrande Real Estate average prices increased around 8% in 2011, with only Vanke bucking the trend toward rising prices. Notably, those rises came on the back of even sharper price increases in 2010. Average prices for the three developers increased 25% in 2010, in spite of government efforts to make housing more affordable.
Based on the official data, prices at the end of 2011 were around 14% higher than at the beginning of 2010, when Beijing made housing affordability a top priority. With urban incomes rising 23% over the same period, the government would appear to have accomplished its mission. But based on the data from the three developers average prices have increased 35% over the last two years outpacing the increase in incomes and pushing the dream of buying a home further out of reach.
Speaking at the National People’s Congress last week, Premier Wen Jiabao said that China’s house prices are still “far from reasonable.” On the evidence of still rising prices at China’s largest developers, he is right. That suggests a prolonged period before the government removes its controls on the sector.
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