Economists have cautiously welcomed changes in China’s system of reporting real estate price data, saying that the reforms would enhance earlier methods that seriously underestimated inflation in the housing sector.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said it was scrapping the nationwide real estate index and would rather publish changes in prices for individual cities, starting 18 February.
Since there was an incredulous variation in the 70 cities that covered by the index, analysts had argued that the headline number was not a real representation of any of the cities.
The monthly data had also caused discontent among the public, with many people complaining that the government’s numbers were contrary to a red-hot real estate market.
“The new data will be more detailed and specific and that will make the data more reliable,” said Zhao Ruoqiong, a real estate analyst with Minsheng Securities in Beijing.
The government also said it would change the way it calculates the consumer price index, though economists said this could worsen distortions in inflation statistics.
The NBS said it would gather data directly from transaction databases in the 35 largest cities in the country, instead of depending on reports from developers.
“The new system will make the data from the NBS more reliable and it is a very positive move,” said Yang Guohua, a real estate industry analyst at Orient Securities in Beijing.
"To be honest, the previous official index only served as a reference for us," Yang added.
The NBS will publish price information for 70 Chinese cities on the 18th of each month, starting Friday. It will provide sub-indexes for newly-constructed homes and second homes, as well as homes smaller than 90 sq m, from 90 to 144 sq m in size and homes larger than 144 sq m.