1st LD: China's home prices continue to rise

China's property sector continued to recover in April, with more cities reporting month-on-month rises in new home prices, an official survey showed Wednesday.

Of 70 large and medium-sized cities surveyed in April, 65 saw new home prices climbing month on month, up from 62 in the previous month, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said.

Meanwhile, five cities reported month-on-month price declines, down from eight in March, according to NBS data.

On a yearly basis, 46 cities posted new-home price increases and 23 reported falls in April, compared with 40 and 29 in March.

New-home prices soared 63.4 percent year on year in the southern city of Shenzhen, the sharpest increase last month among all the major cities.

Prices in Shanghai, Nanjing, Xiamen and Beijing also rose fast, up 34.2 percent, 22.6 percent, 21.7 percent and 20.2 percent year on year, respectively.

The northeastern city of Jinzhou registered the steepest price decline of 3.2 percent over a year earlier.

For existing homes, 51 cities reported month-on-month price increases in April and 10 reported lower prices, compared with 54 and 13 in March.

China's housing market started to recover in the second half of 2015 after cooling for more than a year, boosted by government support measures, including interest rate cuts and lower deposit requirements.

In February, taxes on some property transactions were slashed and further reductions to the minimum downpayments for eligible first- and second-time home buyers were announced. Endi