BEIJING, April 16 -- A total of 201.11 million square meters of property was sold in the first quarter this year, down 3.8 percent year on year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Wednesday.

The fall widened from the 0.1-percent drop seen in the first two months of the year, according to NBS.

In terms of sales revenue, the volume went down 5.2 percent year on year to 1.33 trillion yuan (215.9 billion U.S. dollars).