Overheated property market in Beijing’s Tongzhou district is losing steam
The red-hot property market in Tongzhou, set to transform into the capital’s second administration centre, is losing steam as most home seekers can barely meet the government latest home purchase requirements in the eastern suburban district of Beijing.
The district government last month issued a slew of tough measures to cool the market after home prices in Tongzhou surged more than 50 per cent since early last year.
“The property market has been frozen after two rounds of cooling measures to rein in the overheated market. Now, the home purchase restrictions in Tongzhou are the harshest in the nation,” said Li Yanlai, a director at Midland China’s Beijing office.
Under the curbs, purchasers who already have a flat and do not have a household registration, or hukou, in Tongzhou will be prohibited from buying a second home there while only corporate buyers will be able to purchase units at commercial-residential projects. Prior to the cooling measures, people in Beijing were allowed to buy second flats in Tongzhou and commercial-residential units were open to individual buyers. Units built on commercial-residential sites only have a 50-year lease compared with 70 years for purely residential sites.
In 2015, Beijing provided more details about its plan to relocate its municipal government and parliamentary and political advisory bodies to Tongzhou by 2017. The plan unintentionally sparked a “gold rush” mentality among investors who saw it as an opportunity to make quick gains by buying properties that were bound to rise in value.
