(Yicai) Nov. 1 -- The decline in home sales in China slowed last month, after successive policy steps were taken to beef up support for the real estate sector.

Home sales by the leading 100 property developers fell 28 percent in October from a year earlier to CNY406.7 billion (USD55.6 billion), compared with a 29.2 percent year-on-year slide in September, data from CRIC Research Center, a real estate data resaerch institute, showed yesterday. October’s sales rose 0.6 percent on month.

Despite the modest month-on-month gain, sources at many developers told Yicai that October’s performance was much poorer than that in the previous month.

Around half of the developers saw sales fall from September, with that of nearly 20 percent of them tumbling by over 30 percent, according to data from EH Consulting. Five of the top 10 firms, including China Vanke, also had a decline in sales, with the steepest at over 15 percent. 

Sales by around 80 percent of the developers dropped last month from a year ago, with about 60 percent having a slump of more than 20 percent, EH Consulting data showed.

The property market began to weaken again in the second half of the year, with total sales by the top 100 builders continuing to decline. The decline, which was less than 5 percent in the first seven months, has now expanded to 12.8 percent, according to CRIC data. Furthermore, the total sales at more than 20 percent of developers were down over 40 percent from a year ago.

Policy effects do not last long enough, as the anticipated drop in house prices and policy optimization in first-tier cities have constrained the pace at which housing demand is released, according to the China Index Academy. Insiders at many developers have noted that new policies introduced in cities where the market is quite hot were only effective for around three weeks.

Supply in the property market will likely rebound this month from a low level, with the monthly data constantly increasing, CRIC predicted. But in general, transaction figures will not be great as the number of popular cities and hot-selling real estate projects will continue to decline, it added, noting that any overall market recovery awaits a boost from China's core cities and faces a relatively long adjustment period.

Editor: Martin Kadiev