City continues to promote house purchases and rentals

Shanghai will stick to its plan to establish a housing system that encourages both house purchases and rentals, with a special focus on developing the leasing market, according to the city's newest housing development plan released on Friday.

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), more than 420,000 rental housing units will be released onto the market across the city, accounting for 40 percent of the city's new housing supply. Among them, 220,000 will be rental apartments and the rest beds for lease in dorm-like units.

In terms of commodity housing, which refers to new homes excluding government-funded affordable housing, about 4,000 hectares (40 million square meters) of land plots – large enough for around 400,000 units – designated for residential purposes will be rolled out in the local market.

Notably, the new housing supply in suburban Shanghai will mainly cluster around areas such as the Lingang New Area of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, the Yangtze River Delta Ecology and Greenery Integration Demonstration Zone, the Hongqiao International Open Hub and the five "new cities" – Jiading, Qingpu, Songjiang, Fengxian and Nanhui – where the integration of industrial development and urban life has been planned.

Additionally, about 230,000 joint-ownership homes will be introduced to the market in the coming five years as part of the city's affordable housing scheme.

Shanghai has been accelerating its pace of establishing a housing system that ensures supply from multiple sources, provides housing support through multiple channels and encourages both house purchases and rentals. The housing system made solid progress during the 13th Five-year Plan period to improve the overall housing supply amid ever-growing demand and the living quality of its residents.

For example, more than 700,000 rental units were added across the city over the past five years, and 150 land parcels designated for residential leasing purposes, with gross floor space totaling 10 million square meters, were sold to developers, ranking Shanghai No.1 among domestic counterparts in terms of new construction volume.

The city had also finished renovating 2.81 million square meters of level-2 lane-style houses, or those in the worst condition without private toilets or kitchens, in the downtown areas of Shanghai, benefiting 140,000 households.