(Yicai) Sept. 16 -- The area of unsold properties across China declined for the sixth consecutive month in August, another sign of a recovery in the real estate market.

There were 761.7 million square meters of unsold properties in China as of Aug. 31, down by 3.2 million sqm from a month earlier, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics yesterday. Among them, residential properties fell by 3.1 million sqm to 402.3 million sqm.

However, the two figures increased 3.1 percent and 5.4 percent, respectively, from a year earlier, the NBS data also showed.

The month-on-month decline in unsold properties was mainly due to the recovery of new home sales and developers taking the initiative to scale back new project starts, thereby helping to rebalance supply and demand, Yan Yuejin, vice president of the Shanghai E-House Real Estate Research and Development Institute, told Yicai.

New-build sales fell 4.7 percent to 573 million sqm in the first eight months of the year from a year earlier, with the decline narrowing from 18 percent in the same period of last year, according to the NBS. By value, they dropped 7.3 percent to CNY5.5 trillion (USD772.6 billion), compared with a decline of 23.6 percent a year earlier.

Real estate investment plunged nearly 13 percent to CNY6.03 trillion in the eight months ended Aug. 31 from a year ago, and new housing starts were down almost 20 percent to 398 million sqm, the figures showed.

China has introduced more policies to support the recovery of the property market this year. Beijing lifted restrictions on the number of houses families can buy in suburban areas and raised the limit of housing provident fund loans on Aug. 9. Shanghai and Shenzhen, two other first-tier cities, brought out similar policies at the end of last month and beginning of this, respectively.

With policy support, the decline in housing prices in core Chinese cities has further narrowed. Prices of new homes in first-tier cities fell 0.1 percent in August from the month before, falling from 0.2 percent in July, according to the NBS.

The decline in new home prices in second-tier cities shrank to 0.3 percent from 0.4 percent, while those in third-tier cities expanded to 0.4 percent from 0.3 percent, the numbers also showed.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Futura Costaglione