Home prices in China continued to fall in April, more than two years after the government began property tightening measures, an indication that prospects for a rebound remain distant for one of the key drivers of Chinese economic growth.

A government survey of average prices in 70 cities released on Friday shows prices declined in 46 cities and rose in just three. Both the breadth and depth of the decline were bigger than in March.

Beijing had wanted to rein in property prices that skyrocketed in 2009 as a result of large-scale stimulus measures put in place after the global financial crisis. But real estate investment also accounts for more than a tenth of China’s gross domestic product growth, so a slowdown in the sector bodes ill for the broader economy.

If property investment growth falls to zero, “it could shave as much as 2.6 percentage points off of real GDP growth”, according to Patrick Chovanec, a professor of business at Beijing’s Tsinghua University.

Beijing has so far resisted calls to loosen restrictions on property investment, a major factor driving the post-financial crisis boom. Zhang Xiaohong, a housing ministry official, on Friday told local media that Beijing will not change its tightening measures.

“There is still room for property developers to continue to adjust prices to boost sales volume, but there is no more room for property speculation,” Mr Zhang said, echoing similarcomments made by premier Wen Jiabao in March.

Andrew Lawrence, analyst at Barclays, argues that Beijing is trying to engineer a soft landing for the property sector by simultaneously curbing demand through investment restrictions, while preventing mass bankruptcies of developers via the extension of just enough credit to roll over existing debt.

“It would certainly seem that the supply of credit to the economy has been turned on again” since the beginning of this year, Mr Lawrence said, citing a decline in the loan rates offered by shadow banks to developers. He estimates a further 10 to 15 per cent fall in prices in the next two years.

This dynamic is reflected in the plight of Number 8 Royal Park, a super-luxurious development in Beijing where liveried footmen have been chaperoning potential buyers to assay opulently decorated 520 sq m apartments. The developer is still holding firm on its price tag of over $10m, but sales appear to have stagnated. Staff are still urging clients to buy flats in the same two towers that were on offer a year ago.