GROWTH in China’s residential land prices slowed for the second straight quarter in July-September, the land ministry said, underlining cooling momentum in the property market.

    China’s housing market has softened this year, with sales slowing and banks becoming more cautious about lending to developers and investors.

    The average price of land used for residential homes in 105 major cities rose 7 percent to 5,236 yuan (US$854.16) per square meter in July-September compared with a year earlier, the China Land Surveying and Planning Institute, a research unit under the land ministry, said in a report late Thursday.

    That compares with a 9 percent rise in the second quarter of 2014. Prior to that quarter, growth in land prices slowed in the third quarter of 2012.

    The data followed figures last month that showed China’s average home prices fell in August for a fourth straight month, adding to signs of a deepening downtrend in the property market that is increasingly weighing on the broader economy.

    Land prices for residential homes rose 0.4 percent in the third quarter against the previous three months, but that was the third consecutive quarter that growth has slowed, the report said. Residential land price rose in annual terms in 89 of the 105 cities tracked, down from 95 cities in the second quarter. Only 12 cities saw land prices fall in the third quarter from the year before.

    Land prices in Chinese cities along the Yangtze River Delta, which covers the financial capital of Shanghai and the eastern provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu, dropped for the first time in nearly two years in the third quarter from the previous three months, the report said.

    To stop property sales from sliding further, the government cut mortgage rates and down payment levels last month for some homebuyers, taking one of its biggest steps to boost an economy increasingly threatened by a sagging housing market.