China’s Endless Housing Crisis Shows Faint Signs of Hope

Key points

• During China’s slow-moving housing crash, there have been brief stretches when prices stabilized, raising hopes that the multiyear slide was finally over.
• Each time, those reprieves have proved short-lived — pauses before the market resumed its decline.
• After housing prices in several of China’s biggest cities leveled off in the first few months of the year, the market is again at a crossroads.
• Analysts and economists are split over whether this constitutes a bottom for a downturn that has eroded much of the country’s middle-class savings or merely another lull before the next leg down.
• Average prices for existing homes in China’s so-called Tier 1 cities — Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou — ticked up 2 percent from February through April, according to data compiled by UBS, the Swiss financial institution, and Centaline, one of China’s largest real estate brokerage firms.