Chinese cities look to speed up rental market development

A new residential quarter of the Country Garden is seen in Shanghai, February 10, 2017.[Photo/Agencies]

The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development along with eight departments have issued a circular on speeding up the development of the rental market in growing cities, CCTV News reported.

At present, a growing number of new citizens live in large and medium-sized cities, with strong demand for rental housing, the circular said.

Meanwhile, problems such as insufficient supply of rental housing sources, poorly regulated market order and incomplete policy support systems have spread in some cities with net inflow of population.

These big cities should support relevant State-owned enterprises in becoming home rental enterprises, the circular said, in order to better leverage the leading role of SOEs in stabilizing rent and increasing the effective supply of rental housing.

Currently, 12 cities - Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Xiamen, Wuhan, Chengdu, Shenyang, Hefei, Zhengzhou, Foshan and Zhaoqing - have become the first batch of pilot cities to develop the rental market.

Last year, the State Council ordered local governments to develop the rental market, in a bid to help rein in hot property prices and satisfy housing demands.

Guangzhou, China's economic powerhouse, recently issued a plan to accelerate the development of the housing rental market. Under the new regulation, tenants who hold a Guangzhou "hukou" (household registration) or a skilled worker certificate will be able to enroll their children in elementary and middle schools.

Shanghai's land and planning authorities said previously that two land parcels in the city would be leased for 70 years, and those who acquire the land parcels at future auctions must ensure that the projects developed must become rented residential properties.

China's property market has shown signs of cooling as prices faltered or posted slower growth in major cities amid tough government curbs, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics.

On a yearly basis, new home prices continued to climb in the 70 cities surveyed in June, but the pace of growth slowed in 15 major cities compared with the previous month. On a month-on-month basis, new home prices fell or remained flat in nine cities.