BEIJING, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- Major Chinese cities saw a stabilization in the price decline of commercial residential homes in September, along with improved expectations for the property sector, official data showed on Friday.

The decline in the prices of commercial residential homes in China's 70 large and medium-sized cities stabilized on a month-on-month basis last month, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

In the country's first-tier cities, namely Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, new home prices edged down by 0.5 percent, compared with a 0.3-percent drop in the previous month. Second- and third-tier cities both registered declines of 0.7 percent month on month.

In September, prices of second-hand homes fell by 1.2 percent in first-tier cities month on month, and 0.9 percent in second-tier and third-tier cities, the NBS said.

"Since late September, confidence in the property market has strengthened and expectations have improved," said Wang Zhonghua, chief statistician of the Department of Urban Surveys of the NBS, citing a monthly questionnaire survey conducted in 70 large and medium-sized cities.

The survey showed that 58.3 percent of respondents expect new commercial residential housing prices to remain stable or rise in the next six months, while 45.4 percent expect the same for second-hand residential housing.

Compared to the results of the previous month's survey, these figures have increased by 10 and 6.5 percentage points, respectively.

"China's real estate market has started bottoming out after three years of adjustment," Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development Ni Hong said at a press conference on Thursday.

"Particularly, since the end of September, there has been a significant increase in the number of visits to new property projects and in the number of sale contracts. Transactions on pre-owned homes have also gone up. There have been positive changes in the market," Ni said.

China has rolled out a slew of policies to bolster the real estate sector, including cutting minimum down payment ratios, abolishing the commercial mortgage rate floors for first and second homes, and establishing a re-lending facility that supports local state-owned enterprises in using such funds to purchase commercial homes for affordable housing. Enditem

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