Beijing's apartment-rental market cools down in August

Night view of the CCTV Tower, center, the headquarters of China Central Television, and other buildings in Beijing, May 18 2016. [Photo/IC]

Beijing's sizzling apartment-rental market cooled in August following three consecutive months of rises in both transactions and prices, the Beijing Morning Post reported on Thursday.

Transactions related to rental apartments decreased by 6.8 percent in August over July, while the average rent was on par with that of July, at 4,762 yuan ($713) per unit, according to the market research institute of Chinese real estate service B.A.&5I5J Group.

One-bedroom apartments were the most popular, accounting for 30.8 percent of all transactions last month, an increase of 0.5 percentage points over July, while the average rent for them was 4,285 yuan per unit, up 2.1 percent month-on-month.

In contrast, apartments with two, three or more bedrooms all saw a slight drop in rent from their July levels.

In other first-tier cities including Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, one-bedroom apartments were also the most favored by tenants, showed a rental market report for the first half of 2016 released by 58.com, the leading classified service in China.

Hu Jinghui, the vice president of B.A.&5I5J Group, said the apartment-rental market usually sees booming business in the period shortly after Chinese New Year and the summer graduation season, while in between the peak seasons the market is generally slack.

"With the ease of the discrepancy between supply and demand, rental rates lack the momentum for a further rise," Hu said. "As for the Beijing market, rates may gradually fall in the fourth quarter."