Average home prices in China's 100 biggest cities edged up 0.03 percent in December from a year earlier, snapping eight months of decline and reinforcing signs of a recovery in the property market, a private-sector survey showed Friday.

Data from the China Real Estate Index System (CREIS) added to evidence that the property market has found support from monetary policy easing aimed at reviving growth, despite central government pledges to maintain curbs on the property sector.

Rising home prices could reignite official concerns about property inflation and trigger fresh property curbs.

The increase in property prices coincides with signs of a broadening economic recovery, as two purchasing managers' surveys this week showed the pace of growth in the manufacturing sector quickening.

"There is a low possibility of a sharp rise in home prices nationally in 2013, since the destocking process has not finished," CREIS, a consultancy affiliated with Soufun Holdings, China's largest online real estate company, said in a statement.

Although the survey marked the first year-on-year increase in prices for some months, it also showed the seventh straight monthly increase. Average home prices in the 100 largest cities rose 0.2 percent in December from November.

In the 10 biggest cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, average home prices rose 0.5 percent from November and were up 1.1 percent from a year ago, the second year-on-year increase in 2012.

A recent uptick in land costs - typically a prelude to home price increases - have changed market sentiment and pushed prospective home buyers back to the market in a bid to buy before prices rise even further.