China's new home prices rose at the slowest clip in six months in July, as authorities introduced cooling measures in the red-hot property sector.

New home price increases slowed down in 70 major cities, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Monday.

Price growth in China's biggest cities such as Shanghai and Beijing eased in July to 0.4 percent from June's 0.7 percent growth, the data showed.

Prices in smaller tier-three cities rose 0.2 percent on the month, versus a 0.3 percent gain in June. Tier-two cities, which include some provincial capitals, gained 0.4 percent, slowing from June's 0.5 percent raise.

Regulatory curbs include restrictions on borrowing by developers, caps on banks' lending to the sector, guiding banks to raise mortgage rates and a crackdown on illegal funding in the market.

Separate data showed property investment also rose at a slower pace in January-July from a year earlier, amid tightened financing rules.

"Beijing's tightening measures on the property sector may have had a more visible impact on property investment," wrote Lu Ting, chief China economist at Nomura in a note sent to CGTN.

Nomura estimates that annualized property investment was down 6.4 percent in July compared with a 7.2 percent drop in June from the same period in 2019.

The softening has spread with 51 cities reporting month-on-month gains in July, the smallest number since January and down from 55 in June.

Compared with a year earlier, China's new home prices grew 4.6 percent in July, down from a 4.7 percent increase in June.

(With input from Reuters)