"Shanghai's housing prices make me dizzy," Yu Guosheng, vice director of the Shanghai Municipal Development and Reform Commission, said as he arrived in Beijing yesterday.
Yu was in the capital to attend the annual session of the National People's Congress, which begins today. But the soaring real estate prices in the east China metropolis were still much on his mind.
Lawmakers are aware that buying an apartment or house in many Chinese cities has become one of the top concerns of Chinese wage-earners, whose salaries have increased at a far slower pace than real estate prices.
In Shanghai, the average price of residential property is about 5,000 yuan (US$604) per square meter, almost equal to average annual income in China, said NPC deputy Yu.
According to the National Statistics Bureau, China's average commercial housing price stood at 2,777 yuan per square meter in the first nine months last year, up 13 percent year-on-year.
The figure continued to grow in 35 major Chinese cities in the fourth quarter last year, jumping 10.8 percent from the year before.
A survey conducted by the State Development and Reform Commission showed that the average ratio between housing price and income is approaching 12:1 in some Chinese cities such as Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province and one of China's economic boom towns. The ratio between housing prices and disposable incomes ranges between 4:1 and 6:1 in developing nations, according to research conducted by the World Bank.
Recently, some Chinese urban dwellers started to discuss the possibility of pooling their money to buy land and construct their own houses or apartments, a noteworthy response to the rapidly increasing housing prices.
Song Linfei, a member of the 10th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said that the sustainable growth of the country's real estate market should generate more attention from government departments, research institutions and developers.
More affordable housing projects should be developed, said Song, from Nanjing, while attending this year's CPPCC session yesterday.
In addition, governments at various levels should make it easier for people to build their own residences and diversify the mechanisms for China's housing supply.
"The unbearable burden of buying a place to live will definitely create heated discussions in the CPPCC and NPC sessions, " said Song, president of the Jiangsu Provincial Academy of Social Sciences.