Beijing, Jul 18 (IANS): More major cities in China saw home prices rise in June as compare to May, as the country's property sector showed signs of warming following government efforts to stimulate the slowing economy, official data showed Wednesday.

In June, 25 cities, drastically up from six in May, out of a statistical pool of 70 major cities, recorded higher new home prices than in the previous month, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement.

Twenty-one cities saw drops in new home prices last month, down from 43 in May, while prices in 24 cities remained the same, reported Xinhua citing the NBS data.

It marked the first time since September 2011 for the number of cities with price increases to exceed the number of cities that experienced drops, although the rises in the 25 cities were all less than 0.6 percent.

However, on a year-on-year basis, new home prices continued the downward trend, with 57 cities out of 70 seeing prices decline in June, expanding from 55 in May.

New home prices in 11 cities increased in June from a year earlier by less than 1.2 percent, compared with 15 cities in May.