Beijing: easier for buyers

In an attempt to boost the property market, Beijing is reportedly moving to ease restrictions on international buyers...

As part of a wide range of moves, the municipal government suspended measures implemented in 2007 to limit the number of foreigners purchasing residential property.

Under the rules only expatriates who had lived in Beijing for at least a year could buy a house, and they needed to prove they would be the primary users of the property.

"The Government wanted to curb foreign capital from driving up the property price," Li Wenjie, General Manager of real estate agency Centaline China´s North China Branch, told Asia Pulse.

But the market has slowed since 2007. Last week the Beijing Statistics Bureau reported price growth declined for the ninth straight month. Prices could fall by 20 per cent in the next few months, a recent report by the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences predicted.

Before the 2007 regulation, foreign purchases accounted for seven to eight per cent of real estate transactions in Beijing, according to Wenjie. After the regulation took effect, the number dropped to less than one per cent of the business, he said.

Source: Raising the Roof