China's property market cools

The Wall Street Journal reported that China's property brokers are seeing a sales slowdown, signaling a cool-down in the country's decade-long property boom, a trend sought by Beijing's new tax policy on property sales, which stipulated a 5.5% tax on the full sale price of residential properties when sold within two years of purchase. State media also reported that residential property prices in Shanghai, China's hottest market, declined 9% to US$980 per square meter between March and April, and the average daily volume of new home sales has fallen by about 60% since March.