China Home Prices Flat or Down in 46 of 70 Cities

46 reported to be flat or declining up from 31 cities in July.

Property market cooling

"Property sales in first- and second-tier cities will experience negative year-on-year growth for 2011", and may decline further in the second half of the year, Qin said.

During the three-day Mid-Autumn Festival holiday earlier this month only 407 contracts were completed for residential apartments in Beijing. This represented a 70-percent drop compared to the three-day holiday in May, and a 50-percent decline from the corresponding period last year, according to the Beijing municipal commission of housing and urban-rural development.

September and October are traditionally busy periods for property sales.