June 6, 2012
Translated Tang Xiangyang

Some of China’s biggest cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, have the lowest home ownership rates in the country, a study has found.

More than 100,000 people in forty cities were assessed in the survey by Zhejiang University, Tsinghua University and Xiaokang（小康）magazine.

The researchers found that home ownership rates tended to be higher in cities in central China and provincial capitals in northeast China. For example, in Changsha, Hunan province, nine in ten people own their homes.

Some analysts attributed the biggest cities’ low ownership rates to the size of their migrant populations and high housing prices.

Government restrictions on home purchases also make a difference in those cities.

Many people living in public rental housing have long term, subsidized leases and are considered by many Chinese to have a status similar to home owners.

The construction of subsidized housing is one of the main points of the twelfth five-year-plan, which states that 36 million homes will be completed by 2015.

Last year, work began on 10 million of these units and seven million more will be started this year.

The Ministry of Finance on Tuesday offered 1.5 billion yuan in rewards to the first local governments to meet their building targets.

The ministry set aside 400 million yuan for eastern provinces; 610 million yuan for central areas, and 490 million yuan for the west.

Links and Sources
Lianhe Zaobao 调查显示 中国一线城市拥房率最低
The Beijing News 中央财政15亿奖励保障房建设