The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (MOHURD) recently announced that monitoring and analysis of real estate markets should be strengthened to promote the construction of welfare housing projects. Furthermore, any behavior that violates market order will be punished.
Developers' illegal behaviors like "hoarding houses" aimed at misleading the public to push up housing prices should be prevented.
In the first half of 2009, housing prices reversed the declining trend compared to the same period last year. Since last month, the prices have continued to surge, with an accelerating pace. In June, among 70 large and medium size cities, 34 cities saw surging prices for newly constructed commercial residential housing compared to the same period last year. A similar rise was seen for second-hand housing in 39 cities.
At present, it is inappropriate to release a "universal" market restriction measure as there are rather large regional differences in housing prices, said Wen Linfeng, director of the real estate research division at the Policy Research Center of MOHURD.
However, relevant departments will urge key cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Hangzhou to strengthen their regulation of supply and demand to stabilize their housing prices. In addition, relevant departments will continue to carry out regulatory policies already in place to stabilize market confidence and expectations, and real estate investments.
The local governments of the cities with surging housing prices should make careful medium- and long-term plans with respect to land supply, to avoid an imbalance of supply and demand and stabilize market expectations.
By People's Daily Online
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