BEIJING - Poly Real Estate Group, China's second largest property developer by market value, said Monday that its home sales rose 6.07 percent year-on-year to 14.87 billion yuan ($2.36 billion) in the first quarter of 2012.

Space sold surged 8.98 percent from one year earlier to 1.44 million square meters from January to March, the developer said in a statement filed to the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

In March, Poly's home sales leapt 47.27 percent year-on-year to 9.74 billion yuan, while the amount of sold floor space surged 55.08 percent to 936,100 square meters, indicating a recovery in the property market.

The government has imposed a raft of measures since 2010 to curb the excessive growth in home prices, including higher down payments, higher loan rates, a ban on third-home purchases, property-tax trials and the construction of low-income housing.

Top government officials vowed to continue to regulate the real estate market this year to bring property prices to reasonable levels.

In a separate statement, Poly said one of its wholly-owned subsidiaries obtained one plot of land in Foshan city, south China's Guangdong province last month at a cost of 1.87 billion yuan.