China's average new home prices in 70 major cities rose 0.6 percent in April, unchanged from the pace in March, according to data released by National Bureau of Statistics on Thursday. It logged the 48th straight month of price increase, signaling broadening strength in the market.

The new home price in China's four top-tier cities -- Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou -- rose 0.6 percent from a month earlier, quickening from a 0.2-percent gain in March. Prices were also up 0.8 percent and 0.5 percent month on month in second- and third-tier cities respectively. Qinhuangdao, a small port city in northeastern Hebei province, was the top price performer in the month while Ganzhou in Jiangxi province and Shaoguan in Guangdong province were the only two cities with price drops in April.

Among all the cities, second-tier cities posted the biggest gains. Cities including Nanjing, Hangzhou and other capitals in those larger provinces increased 0.8 percent in April on a monthly basis, compared with the 0.6 percent gain in the previous month. Analysts say judging from land deals and property investment, property markets are heating up in second-tier cities but the overall property curbs remain unchanged, and stable growth is still the goal.

Some cities like Suzhou have seen unusually high prices in some areas, so there might have been curbing policies in these areas. So the government is very sensitive to these unusual changes. So not only in 2019, but also way into the future, the country will follow the rule that a "house is to live in, not for speculation," although different cities might have different policies, said Huang Yu, the deputy director of China Index Academy.

On an annual basis, home prices rose 10.7 percent in April, Xi'an, Hohhot and Dali top the ranking, all increasing more than 20 percent.

Qu Qiang, assistant director and fellow of international monetary institute at Renmin University attributed the increase to the population inflows.

“There are three elements that we have to notice, financial policies in short term, urbanization in midterm and population flows in long term. Both Xi'an and Hohhot were famous for its grabbing-talent policies while Dali uses its beautiful views to attract more people to the city,” said Qu.

He added the other reason that contributed to the rising home price is the “one city, one policy” strategy that Chinese government has purposed in its 2019 government work report. The government pledged more efforts to develop property market by differentiating real estate policies for different cities. With flexibility given to local governments, cities can avoid the systemic risk brought by unified regulation.

“We can't deny that in certain cities like Beijing and Shanghai, the house prices are walking among the highest among the whole world. But since China is a large country with more than 300 regional level cities… (property market) is not very equally developed, so we can't use one policy or one cut to decide everyone's fate,” said Qu.