More than 30 cities have issued new.....>

CHINA PRESS: More than 30 cities have issued new policies on developing the

rental housing market as China enters a "rental era" for property development,

the Economic Information Daily reported Thursday. With the addition of Hangzhou

on Wednesday, 11 of the 12 cities the central government designated as pilot

cities to develop the rental housing market have created new policies to support

the initiative. Analysts told the newspaper that the property market's

increasing focus on rentals will reduce unreasonable demand for home purchases.

The newspaper also cited an analyst who said that the expansion of rentals would

be a major change in the property market. In China's cities, 160 million

individuals, or 21% of the permanent population, are renting houses, according

to data from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. Mao Daqing,

founder of UrWork, a work space sharing company, projects that China's rental

market volume will reach CNY3 trillion in the next decade, with 230 million

individuals renting houses, the newspaper said. (Economic Information Daily)