(Yicai Global) April 10 -- Chengdu in southwestern Sichuan province was the Chinese city that sold the most previously owned homes in March, more than Shanghai and Shenzhen, thanks to a raft of supportive policies and the influx of more people looking for jobs in the rapidly developing western regions of the country.

Over 28,000 pre-owned homes changed hands in Chengdu in March, a jump of 48 percent from February and double from a year earlier, hitting a seven-year high, according to figures from the Chengdu Municipal Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau. This was more than Shanghai’s 24,000 and more than the 26,800 sold in Shenzhen during the whole of last year.

In the first quarter, 92,000 new and pre-owned homes were sold in Chengdu.

Chengdu’s property market is proving very attractive to home buyers as, boosted by four rounds of policy adjustments last year that greatly relaxed housing purchase curbs, the prices of new and pre-owned properties in Chengdu are rising at the fastest rate in the country, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics.

In February, the price of a new property jumped 8.6 percent from a year earlier, while that of a second-hand home surged 9.2 percent. Prices in both segments have been on the rise for the past 14 months.

Mortgage rates for first-time buyers in Chengdu are also on the wane and have recently dropped to 4.1 percent, while interest rates from provident funds are even lower. “My interest repayments would be under CNY1,000 (USD145) a month now, much lower than before,” a person looking to get on the property ladder told Yicai Global.

Chengdu has become a major urban hub in western China, attracting many people from surrounding areas to live and work there. The city’s population has swelled 40 percent in the past 10 years to 21.1 million.

Editors: Shi Yi, Kim Taylor