Secondary home prices in mainland China’s major cities rose in April, according to official data, offering further encouraging signs that the struggling property sector is bottoming out, analysts said.

Used home prices in the first-tier cities rose, led by Shanghai’s 0.7 per cent increase on a monthly basis, followed by a rise of 0.4 per cent in Beijing, data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday showed. Prices in Shenzhen also grew by 0.3 per cent, while Guangzhou inched up by 0.2 per cent.

“Among the 70 large and medium-sized cities in mainland China in April, sales prices of commercial residential properties in first-tier cities grew month on month, while those in second- and third-tier cities saw their month-on-month declines narrow or remain unchanged,” said Wang Zhonghua, chief statistician of the urban division at the NBS.

“Additionally, the number of cities where the sales prices of newly built commercial residential properties rose or remained flat on a month-on-month basis increased compared with March.”

Overall, in the primary market, 21 cities saw prices either stabilise or rise in April, higher than the 16 counted in March. In the secondary market, 16 cities recorded growth following 17 in the previous month.

Additionally, the decline in China’s new home prices eased to 0.19 per cent month on month, smaller than the 0.21 per cent seen in March.