Grand Sun proposes trust fund to build affordable homes for young

Mainland developer Grand Sun Real Estate may not be big in Nanjing but it earned overnight fame after it announced plans to cooperate with young people to build affordable homes for them.

Sun Tianyuan, a director at Grand Sun, said he wanted to do something about soaring home prices that put flats beyond the affordability of first-time home buyers.

"I was once their age. I understand fresh graduates' hardship of being squeezed into tiny flats without toilets and windows. I felt heartbroken after reading news of young people forced to give up their dreams as they cannot afford to stay in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou because of sky-high property prices," he said.

Sun wants to reverse that trend by letting young people determine the price and design of their homes.

After meeting with more than 100 young people, he found most of them wanted flats from 80 to 100 square metres in size, located near subway stations, and within a budget of 1 million yuan (HK$1.24 million) to 1.5 million yuan.

Under current rules, prospective homebuyers must pay an initial sum of 30 per cent or 300,000 yuan if they want a unit costing 1 million yuan.

"They can chip in the 30 per cent initial payment as a shareholder of the scheme," Sun said.