A residential community in Beijing Photo: CFP

Top 10 cities

Prices of new homes continued to rise in November, official data showed Wednesday, with government measures to cool the property market failing to deter buyers.

Out of 70 major cities tracked by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen saw the largest year-on-year rise in new home prices in November, according to figures published by the NBS Wednesday.

Shanghai led the rise, with a year-on-year increase of 21.9 percent in November. Beijing saw an increase of 21.1 percent, Shenzhen saw a 21 percent jump, and Guangzhou's prices rose by 20.9 percent.

Out of the 70 cities, only Wenzhou in East China's Zhejiang Province saw a fall in prices, with a slight drop of 1.2 percent year-on-year in November.

The November price rise in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou was smaller than in October, the NBS said, noting that the 70 cities' average month-on-month price increase declined from 0.7 percent in October to 0.6 percent in November. The average year-on-year price gain in the 70 cities has been slowing down for three consecutive months since September, it said.

"The annual price increase slowed down, because some local governments have been putting more effort into controlling the real estate market," Liu Jianwei, a senior NBS statistician, was quoted as saying in a statement posted by the agency Wednesday.

Major cities in China have introduced a slew of measures since September, including raising the down payment requirements and tightening scrutiny of non-local buyers, to curb the rising home prices.

Zhang Jingjing, senior manager of research and consultancy at the Beijing office of property consultancy Knight Frank LLP, told the Global Times Wednesday that prices are surging in first-tier cities despite the cooling measures because demand remains strong.

"Some investors who used to invest in second- and third-tier city residential property markets are turning to first-tier cities as well, because the prices are growing very fast due to strong demand from non-local buyers," Zhang said.

Zhang Hongwei, research director at Shanghai-based property consultancy ToSpur, said in a note e-mailed to the Global Times Wednesday that many buyers have been rushing into the market because local governments are going to implement new cooling measures next year, such as further raising down payment requirements.

According to data provided by SouFun Holdings, which operates one of China's leading real estate websites, the average price of a new home in 100 cities that it tracks stood at 10,758 ($1,771.9) yuan per square meter in November, having risen consistently since June 2012.

According to a detailed reform plan published after the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee held in mid-November, the market should play "a decisive role" in allocation of resources.

This means that local governments will use more market-oriented measures to cool the property market in the future, Zhang of ToSpur said.

"The authorities will keep curbing property investment and use consistent measures to stabilize the market in the long term," he said. "Local governments will use fewer administrative measures such as purchase limits, in order to nurture a healthier market with end users as the major force driving the demand."