Prices in 70 major cities were down 0.7 percent in May from April, showed figures from the National Bureau of Statistics. That’s the steepest month-on-month drop since October 2014, according to Reuters calculation.

As maintained by separate calculations by the Macquarie Group, prices of existing homes in those cities fell by 7.5 percent year-on-year last month, marking the biggest decline on record.

A month ago, Beijing unveiled wide-ranging measures to rescue the property market, including asking local governments across the country to buy unsold homes from beleaguered developers and easing rules on purchases.