Non-residents to face ban on property purchase in Shanghai
The Shanghai city government here is considering barring non-residents from buying property as investments in the hope of curbing price rises and making homes more affordable to local low- and middle-income families.
The Shanghai municipal government said in a recent directive that several departments--including the housing, land and resources bureau; the development and reform commission; and the public security bureau--were drawing up a property-purchase system for people who are not permanent residents of Shanghai.
The directive said the authorities will also create a separate system for people with temporary residency permits, but no details or timetable were released.
Temporary permits are issued to "badly needed" professionals from outside Shanghai, allowing them to access insurance and other benefits equivalent to those available to permanent residents.
The directive follows a State Council circular calling for affordable housing for low-income urban families.
The directive says affordable housing should be made available to both low- and medium-income families and calls for official efforts to secure land for such developments.
Yin Bocheng, director of the Real Estate Study Center at Fudan University, said a ban on property purchases by non-residents, if adopted by the government, should help curb property speculation.
"I think there are still bubbles in the property market," he said.
"This is mainly because people from other regions have been buying property as investments."
Statistics show that 367,100 property deals were signed in the first 11 months of last year. Of those, 1.76 per cent involved overseas buyers and 16.7 per cent involved people from other parts of China.
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