BEIJING — China's home prices in 70 large and medium-sized cities eased in August, with more cities seeing a decline in home prices, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Sept 16.

In August, 50 out of the 70 cities saw a month-on-month drop in new home sales prices, up from 40 in July. A total of 56 cities witnessed a decrease in resale home prices, up from 51 in the previous month, data from the NBS showed.

New home prices in four first-tier cities — Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou — edged up 0.1 percent month-on-month in August, tempered 0.2 percentage points from the previous month, according to the data.

New home prices in 31 second-tier cities decreased 0.2 percent month-on-month, while 35 third-tier cities saw a month-on-month decline of 0.4 percent, 0.1 percentage point greater than that in July.

Prices of resale homes in the four first-tier cities remained unchanged month-on-month in August. Second-tier and third-tier cities saw their prices of resale homes edge down 0.3 percent and 0.5 percent on a monthly basis, respectively, data showed.

On a yearly basis, new home prices in the four first-tier cities rose 2.8 percent in August, while resale home prices in these cities climbed 0.8 percent.

"Positive changes have taken place in China's housing market, as the country is adopting city-specific policies to meet people's basic housing needs and the need for improved housing conditions," NBS spokesperson Fu Linghui said.

At an important meeting in late July, Chinese leadership urged upholding the principle that "housing is for living in, not for speculation," making full and good use of the policy toolkit by adopting city-specific policies, and supporting people's essential housing needs, as well as their needs for better housing.