Growth of China's home prices further eased in December, while new home prices in the four first-tier cities rose at a faster pace as transactions increased at the end of the year, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed Wednesday. 

Average new home prices in China's 70 major cities rose by 0.8 percent in December, slightly down from the 0.9 percent increase in November, according to the data. This came as local governments continued to toughen up control of the housing market.

However, on a monthly basis, new home prices in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen hiked by 1.3 percent in December, up 1 percentage point from the previous month. In contrast, second-hand home prices in the four cities continue to decline, down by 0.3 percent from November. 

In the entire year of 2018, new homes prices in the four first-tier cities edged up 0.5 percent from a year earlier, significantly down from the 10.4-percent growth in 2017. Meanwhile, secondhand home prices saw a year-on-year increase of 0.7 percent, compared with the 12-percent increase last year. 

In the second and third-tier cities, home prices largely remained stable in December, and the monthly growth of both new and secondhand home prices slowed. 

On a yearly basis, the growth of new home prices in the second-tier cities eased by 1.5 percent, while that in the third-tier cities maintained the same level compared with last year. 

China's property market has been cooling this year under toughened restriction measures. Home prices have slowly leveled out and even softened in the country's biggest cities in recent months, though some smaller cities are still seeing appreciable rises.