Meeting the rising demand for housing
After the Central Ecodown the realty in the long run, nomic Work Conferauthorities have to streamline ence in December said the rental property market and “houses are for living build more affordable houses. in, not speculation”, the GovernPublic rental housing is a new ment Work Report in March reittype of social security housing. erated the fact and vowed to In 2010, seven ministries and accelerate the establishment of a departments, including the Minlong-term mechanism to promote istry of Housing and Urban-Ruthe steady and healthy developral Development, jointly issued a ment of the real estate sector. guideline to expedite the devel
The aim of the recent tightenopment of public rental housing, ing policies is to curb speculaunder which houses will be renttion in the real estate sector, ed out to low- and middle-inprevent market risks, and procome households that cannot mote the healthy development of afford to buy a house, as well as the property market. But to migrant workers. achieve those goals, the regulatThe 2015 Central Economic ing policies should also focus on Work Conference vowed to furthe supply and demand sides of ther deepen the housing sector the property market. reform and expand the list of
On the demand side, the housapplicants for rental housing to relax the rules for migrant working loan policy has been further include residents who have been ers to access public rental houstightened, and aning.increasinglivinginacityforalongtimebut number of cities are imposing do not have hukou (household Many local governments have restrictions on homebuyers. On registration). In reality, however, invested huge amounts of monthe supply side, the supply of it is still difficult for migrant ey to build public rental housing land for construction will be workers and long-time residents units. But in some areas, the increased in key cities to meet to apply for public rental housactual occupancy rate of public the rising demand for houses and ing. So cities with a large numrental properties is not very high curb prices. But to effectively cool ber of migrant workers should because of unreasonable project planning, the non-transparent allocation process and/or high application threshold, which is a huge waste of public resources.
Government surveys on public rental housing focus on the number of units constructed and the supply of such housing units while ignoring the occupancy rate, and thus fail to indicate what measures are needed to meet the public rental housing demand. Perhaps giving more migrant workers and non-native residents access to rental housing and providing house-rent subsidies could ease the demand for housing.
In February, Beijing became the first Chinese city to introduce an official standard for buildings with rental housing, which allows small but livable apartments — between 15 square meters and 22 sq m — to be rented out. The Beijing authorities have also stipulated that public rental housing projects should come up in areas that have fairly good infrastructure, including a convenient public transporta- tion system. This is an example other Chinese cities would do well to follow.
The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development also requires local authorities to accelerate the construction of public rental housing this year to ensure 2 million housing units are ready to be let out. But to facilitate the steady and healthy development of public rental housing across the country, the ministry should also introduce a standard for systematic and comprehensive national construction and evaluation. And apart from providing more small apartments with basic furniture and domestic appliances for rentals, builders could also offer dormitories to rent.
In a nutshell, public rental housing should follow a national standard to ensure the occupants can live in relative comfort.
But to effectively cool down the realty in the long run, authorities have to streamline the rental property market and build more affordable houses.
The author is a researcher at the Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.