China's property outlook index fell for the third month in a row in October, government data showed Thursday, as the impact of policy measures to rein in the strong growth of the sector was felt.

The outlook index, which covers property prices and investment trends, fell to 101.10 points in October, down 0.47 points from September, the National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement on its Website.

That would appear to be the lowest level in about four years. A government official had previously said that the June index of 101.65 was the lowest since the second half of 2001. The statistics office declined to comment on the data Thursday.

The index has trended lower for most of the year. It fell 3.84 points from the same month last year, the bureau said.

The government, worried that surging property prices nationwide could lead to a bubble, has taken a raft of measures in recent months to cool the sector, including taxing the sale of houses sold shortly after purchase and raising mortgage rates.

The sub-index for land development was 95.49 points in October, down 0.34 of a point from September and falling 1.86 points from a year earlier.

Property developers raised a total of 1.59 trillion yuan (US$196.7 billion) in funds in the first 10 months of 2005, up 21.4 percent from a year earlier, it said.

Of the total funds raised by developers, bank loans rose 15 percent to 294.4 billion yuan, while companies' own investments rose 37.9 percent to 550.4 billion yuan. Foreign investment rose 24.3 percent to 20.7 billion yuan, the bureau said. It did not give details about other funds raised.

Unsold property stood at 112 million square metres at the end of October, up 14 percent from a year earlier, the bureau said.

Unsold residential housing was up 8.3 percent at 62.04 million square metres.

The widely watched sub-index for commercial property prices was not released.

Overall property prices across 70 cities rose 5.5 percent in September from a year earlier, after rising an annual 6.3 percent in August and 6.4 percent in July, earlier official data show.

(Shenzhen Daily November 18, 2005)