About 22.9 percent of Chinese residents plan to purchase property in the next three months, up by 2.8 percent from last quarter, according to a survey released by the People's Bank of China (PBOC) on March 21.

The quarterly survey, which was first administered in 1999, is answered by 20,000 members of 400 bank branches in 50 cities. After four consecutive quarters of growth, the figure of residents planning to buy property reached its highest point since 2003, based on available data, indicating that the public believes housing prices will continue to rise.

The survey showed that 27.2 percent of residents predicted rising housing price in the next quarter, while 49.6 percent and 10.6 percent respectively believed prices would remain unchanged or decline. In addition, 12.6 percent of respondents thought this question was hard to predict.

In total, 52.2 percent of respondents think current housing prices are unacceptably high. At the same time, 49.2 percent find the current prices acceptable, while 4.9 percent are quite satisfied by housing prices.

So far in March, in a bid to rein in soaring housing price, many regions have upgraded their restrictions on purchasing property, including first-tier cities such as Beijing and Guangzhou, as well as their surrounding third- and fourth-tier counterparts like Zhuzhou and Jiashan.