🇨🇳 China Property: Here's our 'bubble chart animation' from Real Estate Foresight (REF), showing the official NBS new home price growth indices month-on-month (X-axis) since the peak of mid-2021 against the cumulative change since June 2021 (the onset of the downturn; Y-axis, June 2021 = 100), to the latest July 2024 data released last week by NBS.

-Shanghai, Xi'an, Chengdu, and Hangzhou stand out as relative outperformers for that whole period

-A shift 'to the left' is very clear in recent months, as price declines continue

-Note also the short rebound in early 2023

-Lower-tier cities (in green) are all 'lower' but even within the Tier-1 cities (in purple) there are big differences

We look at this data as a viable comparison of the relative performance of cities, while the actual percentage figures may be distorted (across the cities) by composition changes, rules on price floors (here the local policies can vary significantly), and other data caveats.

Shanghai, while the strongest on the y/y NBS price growth for new home sales (here we only show the new home sales data), shows the largest difference between new and secondary homes (+4.4 vs -5.6%).

Arithmetically, for example, it's possible for a city to show positive growth in new home prices thanks to the sales of higher-end properties, even if these higher-end properties offer/sell at discounts.