China’s top 10 real-estate developers achieved a total of 77.65 billion yuan in sales in the first quarter of this year, an increase of 36 percent year on year, China’s official news China’s agency, Xinhua reported recently.

The total transaction area of new homes built by these 10 developers was 7.138 million square meters during the same period. China Vanke (000002.SZ), the largest residential real-estate developer in China, is on top of the list, with first-quarter sales of 14.5 billion yuan, an increase of 18.7 percent year on year. Hengda Real Estate (03333.HK) sold 1.295 million square meters of new homes. Property markets in China’s first-tier cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai, heated up in the first quarter of this year, especially in March.

In Beijing, the deals of second-hand houses increased 32 percent year on year to more than 50,000 units with the average transaction price rose 50 percent year on year to 14,000 yuan per square meter. The transaction area of new homes in Shanghai increased 150 percent month on month to 800,000 square meters. The average transaction price rose 48 percent year on year and 0.37 percent month on month to 19,767 yuan/square meters in March.