BEIJING - China's land area used in real estate development fell sharply in the first quarter as the chilling house market sees cooled land sales, official data showed on Tuesday.

New home construction used 24,700 hectares of land in the first quarter, plummeting 38.7 percent year on year, the Chinese Ministry of Land and Resources said in a monitoring report.

Prices of land for residential buildings slowed most noticeably in the first quarter compared to land for commercial and industrial purposes.

A major contributor to China's economic expansion, the property market has been affected by weak demand and an excess of unsold homes since 2014.

The cooling trend has continued into 2015, with both sales and prices falling, and investment slowing.

Of 70 large and medium-sized cities surveyed, 50 cities saw new home prices dip on a monthly basis in March.