Prices of newly-built homes rose in April from a month earlier in 56 of the 70 Chinese cities tracked in a government survey, underscoring the challenges the country still faces in reining in property prices despite the introduction of numerous tightening measures, Dow Jones reported. In March, 49 cities saw a rise in property prices from the previous month. New home prices in 67 of the 70 cities covered by the survey rose in April from a year earlier, unchanged from the 67 recorded in March, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday. However, China’s April property sales fell for the first time since September last year in terms of floor space sold, registering a 9.9% decrease from a year earlier. In early 2011 the NBS scrapped a monthly index of average property prices previously applied to 70 large- and medium-sized cities.