National inspection of commercial property practices to be launched

China will launch a nationwide inspection of sale prices of commercial property in the latest effort to standardize the country’s property market, the Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday.

Starting from Monday, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the National Development and Reform Commission will jointly inspect irregularities among real estate developers and agents in commercial property sales for a month.

Irregularities include fabricating information on housing sales, publishing fake advertisements and artificially inflating housing prices, manipulating the market and hoarding unsold homes, according to a notice released by the two government agencies.

Irregularities will be punished severely and typical cases will be exposed publicly to ensure the effectiveness of the inspection, according to the notice.

China’s property market has continued to cool as home prices faltered or posted slower growth in major cities amid tough policies to curb speculation.

Of 70 cities surveyed, home prices in 44 cities rose month-on-month in September, compared with 46 in August, the National Bureau of Statistics said.

The Chinese authorities have constantly reiterated that “houses are built for living in, not for speculation,” and analysts expect housing controls to last for the rest of the year at least.

The authorities are studying a long-term mechanism for real estate regulation and advancing legislative work on the development of the home rental market.