BEIJING, July 15 -- The decline in the prices of commercial residential homes in China's 70 large and medium-sized cities continues to ease on a year-on-year basis in June, official data showed on Tuesday.

In the four first-tier cities, namely, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, new home prices dropped 1.4 percent from a year earlier, with the pace of decline narrowing by 0.3 percentage points from May, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Notably, Shanghai, the country's economic hub, recorded a 6 percent year-on-year increase in new home prices last month, the NBS said.

Second- and third-tier cities saw new home prices fall by 3 percent and 4.6 percent year on year in June, with the declines narrowing by 0.5 and 0.3 percentage points, respectively.