China's housing prices will not rise sharply this year and the property market will develop stably, economist Ren Xingzhou said at the 2013 Chinese Economy Analysis and Prediction Conference held in Beijing Sunday.

National Bureau of Statistics data show that December 2012 saw 54 of a statistical pool of 70 major Chinese cities, up from 53 in November, record higher new home prices than a month earlier. This marked a third consecutive month of increases.

However, Ren, directo r of market economy research at the Development Research Center of the State Council, a leading think tank, said the surge will not last long as there are not enough conditions to support a large-level rebound. Ren analyzed the property market last year before giving a prediction for this year at the conference, which was held by the China Economy Yearbook and Guozhi Media Corporation under the guidance of the think tank.

Ren said housing prices were relatively low in January and February last year and began to rise gradually and then rose dramatically at the end of the year, especially in November.

She explained that the fine-tuning of macro economy policy toward pro-growth, especially financial policy, may have directly or indirectly affected the property industry. She added that a 10 to 15 percent discount on interest rates for first homes was available last year.

Ren said her research team found that a one percentage point drop in interest rate will raise a household's purchasing power for the same apartment of the same area at the same place by six percent.

In addition, the macro control policies for the property market have been in place since April 2010 and have depresse d rigid demand for some time. The rising sales of apartments at the end of last year might be a release of rigid demand, said Ren.

Ren concluded that lowering of interest rates, expectations that the government might loosen control policies, pro-growth macro policies, the push from local governments' and the change in household purchasing power may have all contributed to the rising housing prices.

Ren said there are reasons to support a stable property market for this year, including the Chinese government's clear signal that it will not loosen control, release of the rigid demand, a high inventory of developers and the fact that more government-subsidized apartments will be put into use this year.

She added that the uncertainty in macro policy and the possible loosening of monetary policy at a time when China's inflation rises high may all have an impact on the property market.

Yu Bin, director of macroeconomic research at the Development Research Center of the State Council, predicted at the conference that the Consumer Price Index , a main gauge of inflation, may go up from 2.6 percent in 2012 to 4 percent this year.