Home prices in 70 large and medium-sized Chinese cities rose 5.7 percent in November from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced Thursday.

The year-on-year price growth rate was 1.8 percentage points higher than that of October, said the NBS.

Sales prices for new homes rose 6.2 percent in November from the same month last year. The growth rate was 2.2 percentage points higher than that of October.

Second-hand home prices rose 5.5 percent from a year earlier, with the growth rate up 0.9 percentage points from that of October.

Combined real estate projects investment nationwide in the first 11 months was 3.13 trillion yuan (US$458.27 billion), up 17.8 percent from the same period last year.

The growth rate was 1.2 percentage points higher than that in the first 10 months, but 4.9 percentage points lower than that in the same period last year, according to the NBS.

(Xinhua News Agency December 10, 2009)