Home sales dive in July

Housing sales fell 28 percent month-on-month in July, the biggest monthly decline this year, as tight mortgage lending outweighed efforts by local governments to ease property curbs as prices and demand weakened.

The value of homes sold fell to 424.2 billion yuan ($69 billion) last month from 591.2 billion yuan in June, according to the difference between the National Statistics Bureau's data for the first seven months and the first half of the year.

The value of sales in the first seven months fell 10.5 percent to 2.99 trillion yuan from a year earlier, the data showed.

The figures "will hurt sentiment, since the property market has shown no fundamental recovery yet as investors thought", Edison Bian, a Hong Kong-based property analyst at UOB Kay Hian Ltd, said on Wednesday.

"Developers are still very cautious even as local governments are easing policies. Mortgage conditions should ease further, so that reluctant developers will supply more homes."

Cities began relaxing local property restrictions in June amid sluggish sales. Thirty-six cities had eased their policies as of the end of last week, Centaline Property Agency Ltd, China's biggest real estate broker, said in a report.

While more cities are set to follow, buyers remain hesitant as the central bank maintains mortgage restrictions, according to Centaline.

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