NEW home prices rose for another month in February in the country’s  9 out of 10 largest cities, except Hangzhou which saw a price decrease, China Index Academy, a research unit under Soufun.com, operator of the country’s largest real estate website, said in a report released over the weekend.

The average price of new homes in the 10 largest cities, namely Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Chongqing, Chengdu, Tianjin, Wuhan and Hangzhou, climbed 1.08 percent from January to 19,433 yuan (US$3,170) per square meter last month, with Beijing leading all gainers with a 1.97 percent rise and Hangzhou recording a price dip of 0.13 percent.

High inventories, coupled with abundant new supply scheduled to be rolled out in the coming years, is causing intensified competition in Hangzhou’s property market, which has seen the country’s top 15 real estate developers by sales volume all working to grab their own slice of the profits pie.

By the end of 2013, inventory of new properties stood above 50,000 units in Hangzhou, a World Union report showed earlier. That, however, compared to rather slack property sales, which dropped 9.13 percent from 2012 to 42,970 units in 2013.

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