The Chinese capital city of Beijing will maintain restrictions on home purchases this year to continue to cool the property market, the Dow Jones news agency reported Friday, citing the city’s Mayor.
Housing prices in the city fell 11.3 per cent last year, while private home sales fell 14 per cent in the period. First-time home buyers accounted for nearly 90 per cent of all sales last year, said Beijing Mayor Guo Jinlong in an annual work report on Thursday.
There have been calls for the restrictions on non-Beijing registered families to be eased, the news agency said. Under regulations aimed at curbing speculation and released in February last year, non-Beijing registered families are allowed to purchase their first homes only if they have paid social security or income tax for five consecutive years. Some have called for the threshold to be reduced to three years.
Mr Guo also said that Beijing will build more government subsidised housing this year, with construction to begin for 160,000 public-housing units and completion set for 70,000 units, Dow Jones reported.
Beijing began construction on 230,000 units last year and completed 100,000, the report said.
Source : Today – 13 Jan 2012