As shown in the following figure, the property market in China was in a downturn in the last two-year and it has begun to show nascent signs of recovery in the first four months this year (Fung, 2016). Due to the looser lending policies and the sustained advance in new construction, the real estate prices and sales have risen in recent months (Fung, 2016). The China Index Academy states that Chinese home prices have continued to rise for the 15th straight month in July 2016 (Cao, 2016). The most recent news mentioned that compared to June 2016, the sales prices in Shanghai, Beijing and Shen increased by 2.93%, 2.08% and 1.93% respectively (Cao, 2016). The following parts will discuss the residential market of Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen in Q2 2016. (The …show more content…
Housing Ownership
In China, land and housing have different ownership. Housing ownership is permanent and there is no age limit, as long as the house does not collapse, the house has been the property of the people, but the land is state. The land-use right has a limited period, like residential land property has maximum 70 years leasehold.
According to Property Law of 2007, land-use right is automatic renewal when 70-year residential land-use rights expire (Zhao & Leavenworth, 2016). However, the Property Law does not mention whether the homeowners would have to pay for renewal and what would happen to the future shorter leases (Zhao & Leavenworth, 2016). In the real world, an economic hub of Zhejiang province Wenzhou has a batch of residential property has reached the maximum 70-year leasehold. The local officials state that the residential property owner would have to pay one-third of the appraised market land value at the time of expiry for renewal (Zhao & Leavenworth, 2016). The renewal fee is too much for the home owners. Since the Property Law is deficient, Beijing is working on a new law governing this issue, but is yet to announce a start date (Wei,