China's land supply and land sales both dropped in the first three months of 2016. That's according to a report issued by the China Index Academy.

In the first quarter, 57-hundred and 84 pieces of land were offered for development in the 300 cities surveyed for the index. That's down 14 percent from the previous year. The total land supply was down 9 percent to 208 million square meters.

4,500 land transactions with a total area of 160 million square meters were closed in the period. That's down 13 percent from the previous year.

Land prices, though, rose.  Turnover of land sales climbed 4 percent to 440 billion yuan. Chinese Ministry of Finance attributes the decline in land sales to sluggish housing demand and a slowdown in investment in commercial property development.