BEIJING -- China continued to see its housing market ease in April, with second-tier and third-tier cities seeing a decline in home prices, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Wednesday.

New home prices in four first-tier cities -- Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou -- edged up 0.2 percent month-on-month in April, moderating 0.1 percentage points from that in March, according to the NBS data.

A total of 31 second-tier cities saw month-on-month decline of 0.1 percent in new home prices, while 35 third-tier cities saw month-on-month decline of 0.6 percent in new home prices.