Shanghai Daily news

The rise in the average price of new apartments in Shanghai is estimated to slow to 4.9 percent this year to about 6,700 yuan (US$830) per square meter, the Shanghai Housing and Land Administrative Bureau said.
The rise compares to a 14.6 percent year-on-year jump last year over 2003 as a result of austere regulatory measures enacted in the first half of this year to rein in speculation, the bureau said in a report that summarized the city's housing sector this year.
The report covered houses and budget homes and apartments selling at below 3,500 yuan per square meter and are offered only to families relocated by urban reconstruction.
Among the 24.61 million square meters of new apartments sold in the first 11 months in Shanghai, more than one-third are budget housing, according to the report.
Apartments bought by investors living outside Shanghai accounted for 14 percent of the space sold in November, down from the 28 percent in April as short-term speculation of the market has been curbed, the bureau said.
Movie stars from Hong Kong, private business owners from Wenzhou in Zhejiang Province and coal mine owners from Shanxi Province have snapped up homes in the city last year and drove the housing prices to a record highs.
In June Shanghai started to levy a high tax on property transactions in a bid to curb or drive out speculative capital from the market.
The measures, including a 5.55 percent fee on the total value of an apartment sold within 24 months of ownership and a doubling of a deed tax, have hit both new residential units and the second-hand housing market.
The report said the sales of second-hand houses from January through November totalled 18.53 million square meters, a drop of 23.5 percent from the same period last year.
Sales of preowned apartments hit 143.8 billion yuan during the period, a slight 1.2 percent rise over last year.
Meanwhile, the growth in individual mortgage loans was also held by stagnating real estate transactions and by borrowers' accelerated payoff of the loans.
The outstanding value of individual mortgage loans was 270.4 billion yuan as of the end of last month, an addition of only 23.3 billion yuan from the beginning of this year - 40 billion yuan less than the same period last year as house buyers wanted to pay back the money as soon as possible after banks riased interest rates in March.