Potential tenants may find it easier to monitor Shanghai's housing rentals as the city will launch benchmark indexes tracking the apartment leasing market at the end of this month.
Compiled monthly by the Shanghai Existing Property Index Office, four new indexes will separately track rentals and their fluctuations in the city's serviced apartments, office buildings, medium and low-range apartments and high-end apartments, said officials.
Indexes tracking high-end apartments and serviced apartments are expected to debut at the end of the month while the remaining two will make their presence in the next few months, the office told Shanghai Daily yesterday.
Detailed rental levels will be released with the indexes, which are based on surveys of the city's nine major residential areas, including Xujiahui in Xuhui District and Gubei in Changning District, according to the office.
"We aim to offer residents with accurate information on housing rents, " said Huang Weiwei, general secretary of the office.
"This is a step to improve transparency in the city's expanding housing rental market."
According to a DTZ Debenham Tie Leung report in July, the occupancy rate of serviced apartments in Shanghai hit a record high of 89.5 percent during the second quarter of this year.
Analysts expect rents of serviced apartments and high-end buildings to rise in the second half of this year.