Rachel Hou / Shanghai Daily news

A telephone survey has revealed that more than 70 percent of local residents will not consider the purchase of a new house in the near future, citing high house prices as their main reason, today's Oriental Morning Post reported.
Although local house price increases have slowed this year, only 16.3 percent of the respondents plan to buy new homes within two years. 73.5 percent of them see home buying as an investment or a way to improve their housing conditions.
The local real estate market has also cooled because the city has slowed the pace of relocating people from the old-city-zone reconstruction. Less than 50,000 local residents were resettled this year.
About 300 residents spread throughout the city's ten districts took part in the survey, conducted by the Shanghai Bureau of Statistics. Most respondents are between 26 to 60, and nearly all live within the inner ring road.