Real Estate

For 25-year-old He Fan, Beijing is not a city of fashion, romance and fantasy, but one of pressure, struggle and property.

"After graduating, all my life seemed to consist of trying to buy an apartment. It was something that would comfort and please my mum," said He.

She was born in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, and has been working as a teacher at an English language school in Beijing for three years. After majoring in English literature at a good Beijing university, He didn't return to her hometown, where house prices are much lower than in Beijing.

"My mother hoped I could work in Beijing after graduation. She believes it is a sign of success and she is very proud of it," He said. "If you're not able to settle down in Beijing, that's considered a big failure. In order not to fail, you have to buy an apartment in the city."

He didn't want to disappoint her mother and initially rented a 10-sq-m room, sharing a kitchen and toilet with eight other people before starting to look for a home of her own.

"It used to be a big office of about 150 sq m and the owner divided it into seven 'cells' with plasterboard," He said. "Renting such a room only cost me 600 yuan ($87.87) a month but the disadvantage was that there was always a queue outside the toilet and bathroom."

Unlike ordinary young women, He never goes on shopping sprees and refuses all invitations to dinner or to go clubbing. She said her favorite food was instant noodle flavored with braised beef and brown sauce. Her only hobby was teaching children English, for which, of course, she is paid.

China vowed on Friday to build 1.8 million low-rent homes and 1.3 million low-priced houses next year in a bid to curb rocketing house prices. Beijing will also tighten land purchase rules to prevent hoarding, which also drives up the price of real estate.

"The property price surge this year is mainly due to too much speculative buying and inadequate construction of homes for low-income families," Jiang Weixin, minister of housing and urban-rural development, said during a work conference in Beijing.

Five ministries, including the Ministry of Finance and the central bank, announced on Thursday a new policy that sets the down-payment requirement for land purchases at 50 percent of the total price. In addition, property developers must make a full payment for land purchased from the government within one year of the sale agreement. Developers will not be allowed to buy additional land if they fail to meet the requirement.

Analysts said the moves support the Cabinet's announcement on Monday that it will curb "excessive" growth in property prices. Last week, the government said it would re-impose a sales tax on homes sold within five years to discourage speculative purchases.

Property prices in China's 70 major cities rose 5.7 percent year-on-year in November - the ninth consecutive growth of the year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. In Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, prices have jumped by more than 50 percent in 2009, fueling concerns that a property bubble is building.

"Those combined measures will largely increase the supply in the market and thus effectively curb soaring property prices in some cities," said Carlby Xie, associate director at Colliers' North China division. "Such a quick release of supporting measures also demonstrates the government's determination to cool down the sizzling market."

"The move will tighten property developers' cash flow and thus hold back their impulse to seize overpriced land parcels and prevent them from hoarding land for profits," said Grant Ji, director of Savills (Beijing), a UK-based real estate service provider.

"It is also a very effective way to increase the supply of apartments because property developers have to quicken their sales to get their money back," Ji added.

According to Zhu Zhongyi, vice-chairman of the China Real Estate Association, local governments may also release real estate policies soon to ensure the healthy development of the sector.
 

Shanghai Mayor, Han Zheng, promise to slow down the growth speed of real estate property price in a meeting which hold for officials of Jiangsu Province on 2009.12.18.

The view from my apartment window looks over a nice artificial lake with a clubhouse. Around the lake there is a children's play area and some barbecue pits.

Years ago there was another clubhouse on the same spot, but it was never used for anything. So, the developers tore it down and built a larger and grander one. It's a very nice and impressive building. It has never been used.

To the south of the lake is an open field of many acres, which, I was told, was part of the feng shui of the overall design.
The field was unique in Zhongshan city, Guangdong Province, in that it was a flat and green expanse of grass where the residents of our complex could walk their dogs, fly their kites and toy planes, or just walk about on a warm day.

It had many outdoor holiday dinners and fireworks displays. Now I look at the field and it's a moonscape of freshly-flattened mud, dotted with black steel derricks that are hammering massive concrete-and-rebar pylons into the soil.

According to the original housing contracts that the homeowners signed with the development company, this land was to be forever untouched, a green space for all to see and enjoy.

Years ago the management company tried to build on this land and there was a mass protest, a parade of angry owners carrying copies of their contracts and waving banners, which attracted the local press and effectively halted the plans – temporarily.