Beijing house-owners are flocking to take advantage of new rules which allow them to sell their houses.

Industry sources believe around 700,000 private houses may be put up for sale, said today's China Daily.

Hundreds of residents have already approached housing departments across the city to apply for approval to put their houses on the market.

In housing department of Xuanwu district, more than 100 eager sellers have crowded into the office building since yesterday morning, keeping officials busy issuing forms and answering questions.

"We didn't expect such enthusiasm, but we are happy because the high demand proves that the government has made the right decision to allow house selling on the second hand market," an official said.

Beijing issued a regulation a month ago unveiling plans to allow residents to sell their private houses, most of which were previously publicly owned.

The city's 18 housing departments had met "the same keen and positive reaction" from house sellers yesterday, an official with the housing department was quoted by China Daily as saying.

Chen Tongshun, director of the Marketing Office of the city's Real Estate and Housing Administration, said the printing of all the forms was completed last Friday. Residents must take them, along with housing ownership certificates, residency ID, and other documents to apply for two forms.

One is for their qualification confirmation, and another asks owners for their selling price and the effective duration of their offer. Official departments will tell the applicants within 15 days whether they can go ahead or not.

Industry sources said the ratio of house sellers to buyers stands at one to four. However, analysts said while yesterday's hustle and bustle would give a boost to the new market, it will also have a tremendous impact on the sale of commercial housing. Some real estate developers have started to worry that the low- cost of such houses will affect sales of new houses meant for potential low or middle-income families.