BEIJING -- Loans in China's real estate sector grew steadily as the housing market regained vigor, data from the central bank showed Wednesday.

By the end of last month, financial institutions in China had lent 14.17 trillion yuan ($2.31 trillion) to the property sector, up 19 percent year on year, 0.9 percentage points faster than the growth at the end of June, said a report from the People's Bank of China (PBOC).

Outstanding loans for property development amounted to 3.43 trillion yuan as of the end of September, with a year-on-year increase of 14.9 percent, while individual loans jumped 21.2 percent to 9.47 trillion yuan.

Despite years of efforts to cool the sweltering housing market, prices have kept on rising in major cities.

Of 70 cities surveyed, only Wenzhou saw a decline in new home prices, and only two cities -- Wenzhou and Haikou -- saw falls in existing home prices.

New home prices in first tier cities Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, soared over 20 percent year on year, bringing expectations of further containment measures.