Property prices in 70 major cities increased by 8.2 percent from a year earlier last month, one percentage point slower than in May, China's top economic planning agency said in a statement today on its Web site.

Builders' sales slowed as the government tightened lending rates and mortgage requirement to rein in soaring property prices. Apartment sales by China Vanke Co., the country's largest publicly traded property developer, fell 22.8 percent in June from a year earlier, the company said.

The price increase for a new home slowed to 9.2 percent in June from 10.2 percent in May, and for second-hand homes to 7.5 percent from 8.8 percent, the planning agency said, without giving reason for the slowdown.

New home prices in northwestern China's Urumqi, southern China's Haikou, eastern China's Ningbo and Beijing rose by at least 14 percent compared with last year. New home prices in 14 cities including southwestern China's Chengdu and Nanchong, fell in June from May.

Stocks of Chinese developers tumbled yesterday after China Central Television reported that home foreclosures in Shenzhen increased in the past few months after property prices in the southern city slumped.

Source: Bloomberg