THE housing prices in Shenzhen have been leading a trend of dropping real estate markets in cities across the country since October last year, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported.

    The National Bureau of Statistics published a report on the housing prices in 70 Chinese cities for December last year. The report showed that Shenzhen’s housing prices saw the biggest drop among all surveyed cities with 0.4 percent compared to the previous month.

    Fuzhou, the capital city of Fujian Province, experienced the same drop in housing prices over the same period.

    A senior statistician named Liu Jianwei from the national bureau said that the current housing prices in China’s first- and second-tier cities are remaining stable.

    Based on data released by Shenzhen’s land and resources commission, the average price for new apartments in December was 54,946 yuan (US$8,000) per square meter, which indicated the newly adopted housing policies had effectively controlled the skyrocketing housing prices. The average price before the enactment of the housing policies was 61,600 yuan per square meter.

    In terms of districts, the housing prices in Longgang, Futian and Luohu districts are showing larger price drops.

    The average housing price in Longgang District was 31,925 yuan per square meter after a 21.2 percent drop compared to the prices in November last year. Futian and Luohu districts also experienced drops in prices.

    Larger apartments were showing bigger drops. Particularly, apartments over 144 square meters experienced larger drops than other-sized apartments.

    (Zhang Qian)