200,000 residential units to be built or converted into rentals in 2018

Shanghai will enhance its effort to foster the residential leasing market this year by accelerating real estate development as well as offering support for professional home leasing companies and institutions, said Shanghai Mayor Ying Yong during the ongoing annual session of the city’s People’s Congress.

The effort is aimed to quell speculation in the housing market and make the city attractive to young talent, who have become the city’s “primary resources” — as Ying put it — in building itself into a global city of excellence.

Ying said the city plans to build or convert 200,000 housing units into rentals in 2018 and add another 90,000 housing units managed by professional house rental agencies.

The city’s first professional rental housing brand, Wonder, owned by State-owned Shanghai Land Group, was released on Saturday. It plans to build 20,000 rental houses by 2020 with a total construction area of 1 million square meters. Its first rental housing community in Minhang district started construction this month.

According to the city’s fiveyear plan from 2016 to 2020, a total of 700,000 rental units are planned to be added in the city, surpassing the 450,000 new commercial housing units.

As Shanghai strives to build itself into a global innovation center of science and technology — a task proposed in its maschannels

Talent is our primary resource that plays a decisive role in global cooperation and competition among cities.”

Ying Yong, mayor of Shanghai ter plan for 2035 — the city’s skyrocketing property market, however, has become a deterrent to talent.

Yin Oujie, deputy to Jing’an district and vice-president of Shanghai Oriental Investment Supervision Co, said she felt it was hard to secure young talent in recent years.

“It’s become harder for us to hire good fresh graduates from key universities whose homes are in other provinces as they don’t see the chance of buying an apartment in Shanghai,” Yin said.

In addressing the congress, the mayor said: “Talent is our primary resource that plays a decisive role in global cooperation and competition among cities.”

The mayor pledged to stick to current tightening policies to quell speculation, and vowed to accelerate the pace of establishing a housing system that will ensure supply from multiple sources, provide housing support through multiple