Wait-and-see stance on home purchases

MOST Shanghai residents are not in a hurry to buy a home because of the current high prices and prefer to adopt a wait-and-see stance after the introduction of tighter policies to curb speculation, according to a survey released by the Shanghai Statistics Bureau yesterday. More than half of the 1,532 respondents aged from 20 to 70 years old in the survey said they wished to purchase a home but it's unlikely that they would do so in the next three years.

Only slightly more than 20 percent said they planned to buy a home in the next three years, and the remaining quarter of respondents said they did not want to buy because of the high housing prices and their low income.

Even for those able to afford a home, they were not eager to do so because of low sentiment. 'The wait-and-see sentiment still dominates the market right now and exerts a huge influence on potential buyers,' the survey said. About 70 percent of the respondents were under 45 years old, with many of them highly-educated and a third having an annual household income above 50,000 yuan (US$7,508), the survey said. A survey by the People's Daily in September showed that more than 80 percent of respondents said the restrictive housing policies are ineffective and they expect to see more measures to rein in soaring prices of real estate.

In April, China unveiled 'tough' moves to curb housing speculation such as limiting loans for buyers of a second property and raising their down payment. Shanghai and other big cities later unveiled separate policies of their own to fight speculators."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

40,000 hairy crabs released in Yangtze

Image
THE city government yesterday freed 40,000 hairy crabs into the mouth of Yangtze River near the Qingcaosha Reservoir, the first step in a five-year campaign to repair the ecosystem to improve the water quality in the reservoir that provides tap water for millions of residents. The hairy crabs will help establish a complete food chain in the river to help more fish and other aquatic animals survive in the river, Zhuang Ping, deputy director of the East China Sea Fisheries Research Institute under the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, told Shanghai Daily yesterday. The released crabs, about half female and half male, will eat plankton while some of their offspring will become food for meat-eating fish higher in the food chain, said Zhuang, who is leading the water-improvement program. "The better ecosystem the water has, the better its water quality will be," he said. With a capacity of 438 million cubic meters, the reservoir is providing tap water to about 10 million
Keep reading

Shanghai port consolidates its position as world's busiest

Image
SHANGHAI, the world's busiest container port, will consolidate its title this year and leverage its record throughput to become a multi-faceted provider of port services. The city, which overtook Singapore as the world's biggest container handler last year, saw its annual container traffic volume surpass 30 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEU) yesterday. The figure hits an unprecedented level in the world's port history and marks a new leg in Shanghai's voyage to become a global shipping center by 2020. China's remarkable trade boom is reflected in the Shanghai port numbers, which went from 7,951 TEUs in 1978 to 29.05 million TEUs in 2010. The city's customs oversaw a total of US$790 billion worth of imports and exports in the first three quarters of this year - a 19.3 percent year-on-year increase. And its port handled 23.9 million TEUs over the first 10 months, ahead of that of 23.56 million TEUs at Singapore Port. Shanghai International Port (Group) Co,
Keep reading

Praise, scorn for teacher's odd command

Image
A middle school math teacher has stirred controversy after forcing 20 of his students to slap their own faces for three minutes because they made noise in class and scored poorly on exams. Angry local residents are demanding that the teacher resign and asking the school to announce a punishment. But some of the teacher's students, including some who were forced to slap themselves, are calling for leniency. The incident occurred in a class at Donglu Middle School in Pudong on Tuesday when the math teacher surnamed Yang ordered 20 students in his class to slap their faces after he was irritated by them making noise in class. The students said Yang was known as a very strict teacher, so almost all the students obeyed his order and started slapping themselves in the face for about three minutes. Those who slapped too lightly were told by the teacher to slap harder, students told the Oriental Morning Post. Yang's behavior has sparked anger among local residents, especially so
Keep reading