Thanks to a slew of market cooling measures, China’s residential prices finally trended down in January, with 11 out of 15 major cities reporting price decreases for new homes, according to government data released Wednesday.
Among the 15 hottest markets the central government closely monitors, only Guangzhou saw an uptick, of 0.6%, while sales prices in three cities remained flat, according to the monthly report by the National Statistics Bureau that tracks 70 large-and-medium-sized cities.
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Beijing’s sales prices of new homes were unchanged in January while Shanghai had a 0.1% decline compared with December.
This came as a result of the government’s policies to rein in soaring home prices across the country. Starting last October, about 20 cities raised the requirements for down payments and residency, among other curbing measures, to squeeze out speculative buyers.
To further regulate the property market, asset managers in the 15 major cities, plus Suzhou, have recently been banned from channeling funds into residential real estate. In Beijing, the municipal government also announced that it would cut the residential land supply to 610 hectares (1,507 acres) in 2017, nearly half of last year’s 1,200 hectares (2,965 acres).
Among the 70 cities under government scrutiny, the prices for new homes fell in 20 cities; increased in 45 and stayed flat in five.
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In terms of the broader real estate market, Shanghai became the top city in attracting capital inflow in Asia Pacific in 2016, according to a report published by global real estate consultancy JLL on Wednesday. Globally, Shanghai was preceded by New York, London, Los Angeles and Paris.
"With political upheavals such as Brexit and the surprising U.S. election result, an increasing number of investors are looking at opportunities in Asia Pacific and specifically China," Joe Zhou, head of research at JLL China, wrote in the report.
"Domestic capital was the main driver of real estate transaction volumes in 2016. We believe that China—particularly Tier 1 cities—remains attractive to foreign investors as the market matures," he added.
Write to Fang Block at fang.block@dowjones.com