The latest official data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics points to a slight easing in real estate investment growth for the first four months of 2018, alongside a robust increase in residential housing sales.
Nationwide real estate development investment was 3.0592 trillion yuan for the January – April period, for a nominal year-on-year increase of 10.3%, and a deceleration of 0.1 percentage points compared to the January – March period.
Residential housing investment was 2.1331 trillion yuan, for a YoY rise of 14.2%, and an acceleration of 0.9 percentage points. Residential housing investment accounted for 69.7% of all real estate development investment during the period.
The construction floorspace of real estate development enterprises for the first four months of 2018 was 6.6441 billion square metres, for a year-on-year rise of 1.6%, and an acceleration of 0.1 percentage points compared to the January-March period.
The commercial building sales floorspace for January-April was 421.92 million square metres, for a year-on-year increase of 1.3%, and a deceleration of 2.3 percentage points compared to the January-March period.
The residential housing sales floorspace rose by 0.4%, while the office sales floor space fell by 4.3%, and the commercial operating usage building sales floor space rose by 7.0%.
The commercial building sales sum was 3.6222 trillion yuan, for an increase of 9.0% and a deceleration of 1.4 percentage points.
The residential housing sales sales sum rose by 9.5%, the office sales amount fell by 3.2%, while the commercial operating usage building sales sum rose by 7.5%.