HOUSE prices in the majority of Chinese cities continued to fall last month as the government maintained curbs on the property market, according to National Bureau of Statistics data.

Excluding government-funded affordable housing, prices fell in 45 of the 70 cities monitored by the bureau, while prices were the same as in January in 21 of them. Only Ji'nan, Guiyang, Baotou and Xining saw prices rise, by 0.1 percent.

In Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, where purchase restrictions have been strictly enforced, prices for new homes fell by 0.2 percent.

"The southward trend will maintain as there is no sign of policy loosening can be expected any time soon," said Sky Xue, an analyst at China Real Estate Information Corp.

Year-on-year declines, meanwhile, were recorded in more cities with 27 seeing a fall in new home prices from last February compared to 15 in January, nine in December and four in November.

Prices for previously owned homes fell in 45 cities last month. They were unchanged in 14 cities while the remaining 11 saw gains of no more than 0.4 percent, the bureau found.

An earlier survey by the China Index Academy found home prices falling for the sixth straight month in February.

Prices fell an average of 0.3 percent from January in 100 major cities across the country, the largest monthly drop since last September.

Purchases of new homes saw double-digit declines in both volume and value in the first two months of this year, the statistics bureau said earlier this month.

Sales of new homes, excluding affordable housing, fell 16 percent year on year by volume and 24.7 percent by value.