Beijing launches affordable housing scheme

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Beijing floated on Wednesday a plan to offer low-cost housing to the citizens through a scheme that allows property rights to be shared between the government and buyers.

According to a document issued by the city's housing authorities, individual buyers will be able to buy a share in such homes and still have the full right of use.

The policy has several restrictions. Buyers and their families cannot already own homes in their name. They should have no records of home transfers. Single people making purchases must be at least 30 years old. And a family can only apply for one home. The buyers enjoy equal rights in household registration and children's schooling as other homeowners.

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"The new model lowers the threshold for house ownership, makes things more affordable for families and can cut government expenditure," said Liu Hongyu, a real estate researcher at Tsinghua University.

New housing policies have also been piloted in other major cities to stabilize the property market by the instruction by central authorities that "houses are built to be lived in, not for speculation."

In July, authorities in the southern city of Guangzhou decided to give tenants and homeowners equal rights to local education resources.

In many Chinese cities, the right to attend schools is limited to the children of homeowners rather than tenants. Guangzhou is the first top-tier Chinese city to grant such rights to tenants.

According to the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and other government departments, measures would be taken in cities with net population inflows, including increasing rental housing supplies and setting up a government-backed home rental service platform.

Source(s): Xinhua News Agency