China Property: NBS July data: Still tepid, but tier-1 cities‘ home prices stayed resilient

Research evidence excerpt

J P M O R G A N

Asia Pacific Equity Research

18 August 2026

China Property

NBS July data: Still tepid, but tier-1 cities’ home prices

stayed resilient

The July industry data from NBS shows a similar trend to June’s. While sales &

construction activities remained soft, tier-1 cities’ home price M/M growth stayed

mildly positive (primary: +0.05%; secondary: +0.22%) for 5-6 months in a row.

Meanwhile, 70-city primary home price M/M decline marginally widened, but

secondary home price M/M decline mildly narrowed. We reiterate our view that (1)

tier-1 cities’ home prices will see a soft form of stabilization in FY26 (led by

Shanghai); (2) nationwide primary sales value will still be on a downtrend in FY26,

while secondary sales volume (not included in NBS data) will see a ~10% Y/Y

growth. Against this backdrop, we’d stick to alphas (SOE developers with

outperforming sales growth & good exposure to tier-1 cities), including COLI, CR

Land and Jinmao.

Mainland China/Hong Kong Property

& Conglomerates

Karl Chan AC

(852) 2800-8513

Venus Choi

(852) 2800-8599

J.P. Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Limited/ J.P.

Morgan Broking (Hong Kong) Limited

70-city primary home prices – M/M decline widened from -0.15% in June

to -0.18% in July. Meanwhile, the positive growth in tier-1 cities narrowed

from +0.12% M/M in June to +0.05% in July (the sixth consecutive month of

positive growth), led by Shanghai and Shenzhen (both +0.2% M/M) (Table 1

) but dragged by Beijing (-0.3% M/M), which may explain the recent policy

easing. Home prices in top tier-2 cities also posted a mild 0.05% M/M growth

(led by +0.3% M/M in Hangzhou).

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70-city secondary home prices – M/M decline narrowed from -0.32% in

June to -0.29% in July. Meanwhile, tier-1 cities rose 0.22% M/M (June: +0.3%

M/M, positive growth for the fifth consecutive month), with three cities seeing

positive growth (Guangzhou: +0.4%; Shanghai: +0.3%; Shenzhen: +0.2%)

while Beijing staying flat. That said, Centaline’s tier-1 secondary home price

index fell 0.1% M/M (June: -0.2% M/M), mostly dragged by -0.7% M/M in

Shenzhen and -0.3% M/M in Beijing. For the full year of 2026, we coninue to

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