By Liangping Gao, yukun zhang and Ryan Woo
BEIJING (Reuters) -China's home prices fell at the slowest pace in 17 months in November, with the crisis-hit property market showing signs of stabilising in some major cities amid government efforts to revive the real estate sector.
New home prices were down 0.1% in November from a month earlier, the slowest decline since June last year, according to Reuters calculations based on National Bureau of Statistics data on Monday.
Prices dropped 0.5% in October from a month earlier.
In annual terms, new home prices fell 5.7% after a 5.9% drop the previous month.
"A second consecutive month of improving price data is a positive signal for the property market bottoming out, and we expect a trough to be established in 2025 and the start of an L-shaped recovery to take effect," Lynn Song, chief economist, Greater China at ING, said in a research note.
China's policymakers have stepped up efforts to revive the country's property sector by introducing new measures to encourage homebuying after a government-led campaign to rein in highly leveraged developers triggered a crisis in 2021.
Since September, measures aimed at encouraging homebuying have included cutting mortgage rates and minimum down-payments, as well as tax incentives to lower the cost of housing transactions.
Among 70 cities surveyed，month-on-month home prices rose in 17 cities, an increase of 10 from the previous month, the data showed.
"The inflection point for home prices in first-tier cities has been reached, but prices in many small cities are still falling," said Zhang Dawei, an analyst at property agency Centaline.
The biggest cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, have implemented the tax breaks to spur demand for homes.
Last month, home prices rose 0.6% and 0.3% on month in Shanghai and Shenzhen, separately, although they fell 0.5% in Beijing.
"Home buying is affected by income stability, demographics, and the backlog of real estate inventory, and more policies and time are needed to stabilise the broad property market," said Zhang.
Property investment and sales fell in double-digit figures in January-November from a year earlier, official data also showed on Monday.
China's economy has struggled this year, and since September policymakers have cut interest rates and made numerous promises to stabilise financial and property markets, boost economic growth and revive consumption.
The country's top leadership promised during the Central Economic Work Conference, a closely watched agenda-setting meeting on Dec. 11-12, to stabilise the property market by announcing measures including the control of land supply and pushing ahead with a plan for local governments to buy newly built unsold properties for affordable housing.