BEIJING -- China continued to see a generally stable housing market in April, with home prices in 70 major cities showing milder month-on-month increases, official data showed Monday.

New home prices in four first-tier cities -- Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou -- rose by a month-on-month growth of 0.2 percent in April, unchanged from one month earlier, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The country's second-tier cities saw a month-on-month increase of 0.5 percent in new home prices, up 0.2 percentage points from the previous month, while third-tier cities witnessed a month-on-month rise of 0.6 percent in new home prices, compared with a 0.2-percent increase reported in March.

Prices of resold housing in first-tier cities climbed 1.1 percent from March, while prices in second-tier and third-tier cities edged up 0.4 percent and 0.2 percent month on month, respectively.

The housing demand which had been curbed by the novel coronavirus epidemic was released further in April, said Kong Peng, a senior NBS statistician.

China's housing market remained generally stable as authorities across the country stuck to the principle that "houses are for living in, not speculation," Kong said.