China's property sector has showed further signs of cooling after years of red-hot growth, according to official data released on Tuesday.

The real estate development climate index dropped 0.61 points from March to 95.79 points in April,  [Offshore Company Incorporation]the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement.

The figure has declined month on month for three consecutive months.

This index takes into consideration multiple aspects of the industry, including property investment as well as the area of property sold and sales volume. An index of 100 shows the optimal growth rate, while that from 95 to 100 represents a moderate level.

In nominal terms, the country's investment in property development rose 16.4 percent year on year to 2.23 trillion yuan (about 362 billion U.S. dollars) in the first four months of 2014, slowing down by 0.4 percentage points from the first quarter, the NBS said.

The total area of property sales dropped 6.9 percent year on year in the first four months to 277.09 million square meters. The drop was 3.1 percentage points steeper than the decline seen in the first quarter.

Property sales volume was down by 7.8 percent in the same period, compared with a drop of 5.2 percent in the first three months, according to the NBS.

Weak property investment served as a main drag on the country's fixed-asset investment, which rose 17.3 percent year on year to 10.71 trillion yuan in the first four months, slowing by 0.3 percentage points from the first quarter.

The cooling of the property sector was backed up by new inventory data released on Monday by E-house China R&D Institute, a housing research center headquartered in Shanghai.

By the end of last month, combined new residential housing inventories in 35 cities tracked by the institute stood at 248.91 million square meters, [HongKong Richful  - Hong Kong Company Formation, Offshore Company Incorporation]the highest level in five years.

The inventory level was up 2.6 percent from a month earlier and up 19.5 percent year on year, the institute said, adding that stockpiles rose year on year in 28 of the 35 tracked cities.

Yan Yue, researcher with the institute, said although developers put more housing projects on the market last month, inventories still rose as buyers widely expected home prices to drop.

The stockpile in first-tier cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, rose 12.4 percent year on year, while those for second- and third-tier cities soared by 19.2 percent and 27.6 percent respectively.

"Affected by tight housing credit, momentum for further home price rises has weakened," said Zhang Dawei, chief analyst at real estate agent Centaline Property.

Market expectation has changed and more potential buyers have chosen to take a wait-and-see attitude, forcing property developers to lower prices to increase sales, Zhang said.

With home sales dropping since the beginning of the year, the industry had to further lower its expectation for market prospects, he said.

"It has become a consensus for developers to accelerate capital turnover this year in order to gain a more active position in addressing a potential crisis from capital crunch and sales plunges," Zhang said.

On Tuesday afternoon, China's central bank said in a statement that commercial banks should be quicker in approving and issuing loans to qualified home buyers, citing a requirement from a meeting held on Monday.

Commercial banks should "properly allocate credit resources and prioritize credit demand of first-home buyers," the statement said.

As information about the central bank meeting circulated on the Internet from Tuesday morning, [HK Corporate Registration]Chinese property shares saw relatively strong gains as investors believe the move will ease the liquidity crunch for the property sector.

The sub-index for the property sector rose 0.48 percent on Tuesday, compared with a drop of 0.1 percent in the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index.

China Vanke, the largest property developer by market value, surged 2.87 percent. Poly Real Estate, the second largest developer in the country, soared 2.92 percent.