Xiongan introduced measures to regulate housing rental market

The Xiongan New Area in Hebei province has rolled out a series of measures to stabilize prices and curb speculation in the housing rental market as prices have surged up since the central leadership unveiled the blueprint of the area on April 1.

According to the area's official account on WeChat, more than 1,000 houses, both commercial and residential, have been rented out to non-local enterprises and privates who swarmed into Xiongan during the past five months.

China announced the decision to set up the Xiongan New Area, about 100 kilometers southwest of Beijing, to advance the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

It is another area with national significance after the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone and the Shanghai Pudong New Area, which are testing grounds for the country's reform and opening-up.

Since then, more than 60 large enterprises have settled in Rongcheng county, where sit the temporary offices of the Xiongan government, who have rented 16.3 percent of the county's available houses.

Following the swarms of non-locals, rental prices for most of the houses in Xiongan have risen a certain extent, with some even increasing by 400 percent.

To cope with the situation, the governments of three counties under the administration of Xiongan put forward a series of measures, such as shutting down illegal real estate agencies and establishing government-led house-renting platforms to provide free information to lessors and tenants.

Local public security bureaus also took action. They investigated nearly 300 cases for illegally doing rental business, punished related people, and will keep a close eye on the market in the future.

Besides, the area will accelerate constructing 100,000 square kilometers of buildings to accommodate enterprises and privates that have renting needs in Xiongan.