BEIJING, July 14 -- China's real estate market continued to recover with sales of the country's main developers showing improvement for the first half of the year.

China Vanke, the country's biggest property developer by sales, reported a 9 percent year on year sales rise in the first half, while the Guangzhou-based Evergrande Real Estate Group, another industry leader, saw sales up 25.7 percent.

Meanwhile, developers have been investing in new projects. In June, China Vanke bought eight pieces of land for property development.

Major developers such as Gemdale Corporation and Beijing Capital Development Co. have also been buying land in big cities such as Beijing and Hangzhou since May.

The continuous improvement of the real estate sector was partly attributed to lower borrowing costs, as the central bank has cut interest rates three times since the beginning of this year.

On average, new home prices increased 0.56 percent in June compared with May, according to a report released earlier by the China Index Academy, a research institute that provides housing price data.

The academy forecast that both supply and demand for new homes will stay at a relatively high level and the inventory pressures in major cities will gradually decline in July.