China’s new home prices for its 70 major cities rose 0.6% month-on-month in July, slightly lower compared to the 0.66% rise seen in June; year-on-year prices were up 9.7% compared to 10.3% in the previous month.

Our thoughts: Mainland home prices continue to cool on a national level on repeated urging from Beijing to local governments to keep their housing markets affordable. Nonetheless, while the government will continue to remain firm on its general housing policy controls, our expectations are for some localized adaptation / tweaks for certain cities facing rapidly slowing economies and rising home inventories.