SHANGHAI - New house sales in Shanghai fell 44.2 percent in the first quarter of this year as a spate of measures to rein in the property sector took effect.

New home sales totalled 842,300 square meters in the financial and business center, global real estate services firm Cushman and Wakefield said Wednesday.

The sales slump drove down the average price by 9.8 percent to 42,888 yuan ($6,830) per square meter, it said.

Wu Huimin, a senior director with Cushman and Wakefield, said the slump in sales is a result of supply as well as tightening lending policy.

Since 2016, local authorities have introduced a series of measures, including higher downpayments and mortgage rates, to rein in the hot property market.

China is also planning to build more rental housing in big cities to help cool down the market.

Shanghai auctioned 10 plots of lands for rental housing and no land for commercial housing in the first quarter.