(Yicai Global) Nov. 15 -- The Chinese mainland property market cooled further last month, with prices for new and used homes declining from a month earlier and the number of cities where they fell setting another record.

The National Bureau of Statistics today released price data for residential housing in 70 large- and medium-sized cities in October, showing that prices of new and second-hand homes in over 70 percent of the cities fell month on month.

Fifty-two cities saw new home prices fall, while the cost of a used home dropped in 64 cities, the most in 80 straight months since March 2015, the figures showed.

The number of cities where new home prices recorded monthly increases fell for the fifth month in a row to 13 from 27 in September, while the number of cities where prices of second-hand houses increased fell to to four, the first instance of single digits this year.

New homes in first-tier cities were as expensive as they were in September. But in second-tier cities, they were 0.2 percent cheaper on September, and in third-tier cities they fell 0.3 percent, 0.1 percentage point more than a month earlier, after recording the first fall since March last year in September.

Last month, second-hand home prices fell 0.4 percent from a month ago in first-tier cities, the same as in September. A 0.3 percent decline in used home prices in second-tier cities was 0.2 percentage point lower than September, and the same decline in third-tier cities was 0.1 point more.

Analysts told Yicai Global that first-tier cities are more resilient to new home prices due to reduced supply, while new houses face greater pressures in third- and fourth-tier cities dominated by the new housing market as developers have a more urgent need of sales returns in those markets.

Falling prices are the result of lower transaction volumes, according to Xu Xiaole, chief market analyst at the Beike Research institute. Sales of used homes have been falling since the second quarter, with the contraction of mortgage loans, while the new housing and land markets have also cooled. The number of deals continued to decline last month from September.

Prices still remained broadly flat though as the decline was less than 0.5 percent in about 80 percent of the cities where prices of new and second-hand houses fell, Xu added.

The decline in new home prices will slow soon, said Li Yujia, chief researcher at Housing Policy Research Center of Guangdong Province. This is because easier financing will hedge against developers’ big discounts on home prices as mortgage and development loans gradually return to normal.

Year-on-year, new and second-hand residential home sales prices in various cities are still rising, but the increase is also continuing to fall.

Last month, new residential houses were 5 percent costlier than a year ago in first-tier cities, down 0.3 point from September. And second-hand home prices rose 1 percentage point less than in September to gain by 6.7 percent from a year earlier.

Editors: Xu Wei, Peter Thomas