China's property market cools in second half of Oct.

China's property sector has shown signs of cooling after the authorities issued a spate of measures to contain sky-high prices, an official survey showed Friday, citing fresh data for the second half of October.

Of 70 large- and medium-sized cities surveyed in the second half of October, seven saw new home prices drop month on month, up from two in the first half of the month, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

"Property prices stabilized in the second half of October," the NBS said in a statement.

In the second half of October, new residential property prices in Shenzhen and Chengdu continued to decline, while the prices in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Xiamen and Zhengzhou reversed the upward trend to start declining , according to the NBS.

Compared with September, the month-on-month price index for both new and second-hand residential property in those cities retreated in October, even though most of the cities still reported rises.

The NBS attributed the "significant changes" to policies rolled out by local governments to curb prices. In early October, dozens of Chinese cities announced measures, including purchase limits and tightened mortgage restrictions, to prevent prices from rising out of control.