Shenzhen's land authorities have concretized their plan of selling 1.6 square kilometers of land to real estate developers annually in the following years in an effort to curb the skyrocketing housing prices.

The authorities also plan to sell some land inside the special economic zone to developers, the first time in four years they have done so, Huang Ting, deputy director of the municipal land resources and housing management bureau, told a press conference yesterday.

The government also wants to increase land supply by transforming urban villages and taking back idle land, said Huang, without elaborating.

Huang's bureau was also considering building cheap flats for low-income families. "Shenzhen needs a lot of such flats because it has a large migrant population," said Wang Feng with the city's estate research center.

The news conference was held one day after the land bureau promulgated four new regulations aimed at cracking down on property speculation.

The regulations prohibit developers from selling houses in piecemeal. Analysts have accused some developers of selling apartments in installments at high prices to artificially create a housing shortage.

The regulations also ban real estate agencies from selling second-hand houses without property ownership certificates. Processing a property ownership certificate for a new apartment usually takes about six months, during which time speculators buy and resell houses to evade taxes. In order to close the tax loophole, the regulations also ban developers and homebuyers from changing sales contracts without a good reason.

"We are trying to stop every possible way of property speculation," said Huang.

Shenzhen's housing prices rose by 13.4 percent in the first 10 months of this year over the same period last year, despite the Central Government's effort to cool down the property market.

The property price was pushed up by the robust market demand as well as price manipulation by developers and speculators, said Dr. Wang Feng with Shenzhen's real estate research center.

However, Wang disagreed with earlier media reports that estimated 200 million yuan (US$24.66 million) was being moved from Shanghai to Shenzhen's real estate market.

"The figure lacked statistic support," said Wang. Wang said his research center investigated several housing estate projects and found about 90 percent of the registered buyers used Shenzhen-based mobile phones. "That means most of the buyers are Shenzheners," said Wang.

Wang said that among 6 million Shenzhen residents who had been living in the city for over one year, 40 percent could not afford an apartment at current prices.

(Shenzhen Daily November 16, 2005)