China's House Prices May Stop Falling So Fast

China's house prices are expected to fall more slowly this year than experts thought before. A new survey by Reuters news company shows that home prices will likely drop by 3.5% in 2024. This is better than the 4% drop that was predicted in March. The survey was done between May 18 and May 28.

The experts also think house prices might start going up again by 2027. They predict prices will rise by 0.3% that year. Before, they thought prices would stay the same in 2027. By 2028, prices could go up by 1.8%.

China's housing market has been having problems for a while now. Many people are worried about their jobs and money, so they don't want to buy houses. The government is trying to help by giving people money to buy homes. Some cities like Shenzhen and Guangzhou have made it easier for people to buy houses.

Lulu Shi works for a company called Fitch Ratings that studies money and business. She says the house-building industry will still have trouble in 2026. But things should get better slowly as the government keeps helping. She thinks big cities will do better than smaller towns.

The survey shows that building new houses will drop by 12% this year. That's worse than the 10.3% drop predicted in March. House sales will also fall by 8.3%, which is more than the 6.5% drop experts thought before.

Huang Yu works for the China Index Academy, which studies housing. He says people are still worried about losing their jobs and making less money. This makes them scared to buy houses. Until people feel more confident, the housing market will keep struggling.

The government doesn't want to push too hard to fix the housing market quickly. Instead, they want to make sure it doesn't get worse too fast. Yingxue Ren works for S&P Global Ratings. She says the government's main goal is to stop the housing market from crashing. The government still has ways to help more if they need to.