(Yicai Global) Oct. 20 -- China's property prices continued to increase in big and medium-sized cities in September but in a less aggressive manner than earlier this year.

The country's four largest cities, including Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou, logged an accelerating clip of price hikes in annual comparison, the National Bureau of Statistics announced today.

The four cities' new home prices rose by 3.9 percent from a year ago. In August, the increase had been the same. Meanwhile, existing homes got 7.4 percent more expensive while the hike was 0.5 percentage points higher than that of August.

However, a month-to-month comparison shows that the trend was cooling. In the four big cities, new home prices climbed 0.4 percent in September from a month earlier. That was less than between August and July. Existing home prices were also rising slower.

For 31 second-tier cities, new home prices widened by 4.8 percent from a year ago. Existing home prices gained 2 percent. When using month-to-month data, price hikes were becoming less drastic.

Editor: Emmi Laine