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."

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