Those who have worked and lived in Beijing for a certain number of years will be able to purchase price-limited housing

The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Land and Resources announced this morning that there will be eligibility criteria for the sale of price-controlled housing, and the municipal government will soon issue regulations on purchase qualifications and management. In addition to regular price-controlled housing for Beijing residents, price-controlled housing will also be launched for non-Beijing residents who have worked and lived in Beijing for a period of time.

This morning, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Land and Resources held a press conference to introduce the city's policy-based housing land supply situation and new measures for the land bidding and auction system.

The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Land and Resources stated that, in order to implement the requirements put forward by Premier Wen Jiabao in his 2010 Government Work Report to "curb the excessively rapid rise in land prices and intensify the investigation and punishment of illegal and irregular activities such as hoarding land without building, withholding properties from the market, and driving up housing prices," Beijing will take some new measures starting with the commercial housing land launched this time.

The city is piloting a price cap on commercial housing sales. The first project, a residential plot No. 6 in the Changyang Town Start-up Area of Fangshan District, went on sale today, with a sales price cap of approximately 12,500 yuan per square meter, which is 171,000 yuan per square meter lower than the surrounding similar commercial housing prices of 15,000 yuan per square meter.

The purchase of commercial housing is subject to price restrictions, requiring a certain number of years of work and residence in Beijing.

Zeng Zanrong, deputy director of the Municipal Land and Resources Bureau, introduced that the nine residential land parcels launched in the city today are the first batch of ordinary commercial housing units in the city that are clearly positioned as small and medium-sized apartments. The standard for "small and medium-sized apartments" is that apartments under 90 square meters account for more than 70% of the total area, and the maximum area cannot exceed 120 square meters.

Among them, the No. 6 residential land plot in the starting area of Changyang Town, Fangshan District, was the first to adopt the "price-capped, land-price-competitive" listing method. Zeng Zanrong introduced that the sales price cap is about 12,500 yuan per square meter, while the surrounding similar commercial housing is 15,000 yuan per square meter.

Unlike the price-controlled housing that is being sold through a public lottery in Beijing, these small and medium-sized price-controlled commercial housing units can be purchased not only by Beijing residents, but also by people who have lived and worked in Beijing for a certain number of years.

The municipal government will soon introduce regulations on eligibility and management for purchasing housing, which may refer to the current regulations on price-restricted housing. These regulations will be released and implemented once the relevant departments have finalized them.

Furthermore, this sales price cap will be written into the land transfer contract, preventing developers from arbitrarily breaching the contract. It is understood that this sales price cap is designed to prevent further increases in housing prices. If surrounding property prices fall below the price cap, developers will also bear corresponding risks.

Land auctions will no longer be limited to "highest bidder wins".

In the future, the transfer of land for commercial residential use will no longer be based on the highest bidder, but will instead adopt a comprehensive evaluation method based on the best overall conditions.

At the same time, further pilot programs will be implemented to adopt bidding methods without evaluation committees, as well as methods such as "price-restricted housing, bidding for land price" or "land price-restricted, bidding for policy-based housing area" to guide enterprises to acquire land rationally and curb irrational bidding and excessively rapid housing price growth.

In the new comprehensive bidding process, a reasonable price range will be set, while the factor of bid price will be weakened again, and factors such as the bidder's financial status, corporate credit, qualifications and performance will be strengthened. For the first time, factors such as the bidder's past performance of land transfer contracts, participation in the construction of policy-based housing, and recent land acquisition will be included in the evaluation criteria.

Ye Xiangzhong, deputy director of the Municipal Land Consolidation and Reserve Center, explained that in order to ensure the fairness and impartiality of the bidding process, the bidding experts will be randomly selected by computer from the expert database established by the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Personnel in the Beijing Municipal Development and Reform Commission. The selection will only take place 10 minutes before the bidding, and the experts will only be notified of the time and place, without knowing which project they will be evaluating.

In addition, the expert evaluation time will be shortened as much as possible, mobile phone blocking will be set up on site, the whole process will be recorded as evidence, and notary and discipline inspection personnel will be invited to supervise the process on site.

Reduce the scale of single residential land sales

In the future, land sales will reduce the scale of individual residential land sales, restrict the scale of land acquisition by enterprises, promote the formation of effective supply as soon as possible, and prevent developers from hoarding land.

In principle, the total area of land for commercial residential development to be transferred shall be controlled at around 10 hectares, and the building area of commercial housing shall be controlled at less than 200,000 square meters. The scale of land acquisition for commercial housing by a single enterprise within 6 months shall be limited as follows: for enterprises with first-class real estate development qualifications, the limit shall be no more than 400,000 square meters of building area; for other enterprises, the limit shall be no more than 200,000 square meters.

Meanwhile, the supervision of market access contract performance will be strengthened. For every land transfer in the future, the Municipal Land and Resources Bureau will publish information on its website, including contract signing, payment of minimum purchase price, and project commencement and completion dates, to accept public oversight.

For companies with poor records such as failing to sign land transfer contracts on time, owing land transfer fees, failing to start construction on schedule, or failing to comply with the reporting system for commencement and completion of construction, or whose land development scale exceeds their actual development capacity, the Municipal Land and Resources Bureau will prohibit or prohibit the company and its affiliated companies from participating in land bidding, and will regularly publish the list of such companies.

All the land parcels offered in this transaction will be included in the management of this system.

The supply of land for policy-oriented housing has increased significantly.

In 2010, Beijing will supply 2,500 hectares of residential land, an increase of 968 hectares compared to last year. Of this, 1,250 hectares will be used for the construction of various types of policy-based housing. As of now, 571 hectares of land for policy-based housing have been supplied, accounting for 681 hectares of the total residential land supplied in the city.

Furthermore, the city's policy-based housing construction follows the principle of "districts and counties solving their own problems, with designated resettlement in urban areas," meaning that districts and counties are primarily responsible for construction. The first batch of resettlement housing sites has been identified, covering an area of approximately 80 hectares, and can provide approximately 2 million square meters of resettlement housing. Construction will begin gradually after May Day. The average land cost for these sites is approximately 3,500 yuan per square meter of building area.

The second batch of resettlement housing sites has also been basically selected, providing approximately 4 million square meters of resettlement housing, which will be supplied to various urban areas starting in the second quarter. It is estimated that a total of about 90,000 policy-based housing units can be provided over two years, improving the living conditions of about 200,000 people.

Among them, 500,000 square meters will be allocated near Changyang Town in Fangshan District, another 500,000 square meters will be allocated in Changping and Huilongguan, 700,000 square meters will be allocated in Dougezhuang in Chaoyang District, 1 million square meters will be allocated in the two stations and one street in Tongzhou District, 900,000 square meters will be allocated near Jiugong and the Jingkai Expressway in Daxing District, and 500,000 square meters will be allocated in Shunyi District. These projects are now basically finalized.

This morning, after the Municipal Land and Resources Bureau announced at a press conference that it would improve the land bidding and auction system, the "price-capped land bidding" approach caught the attention of various media outlets, with reporters bombarding them with questions that lasted longer than the press conference itself.

Deputy Director Zeng Zanrong of the Municipal Land and Resources Bureau and Deputy Director Ye Xiangzhong of the Land Reserve Center took turns "answering questions" to explain to the media how the bidding, auction, and listing of commercial residential land will become more "transparent" in the future.

"If you can't get through to me on the phone one day, I'm probably at the auction site," Deputy Director Ye Xiangzhong joked to reporters, explaining that cell phone blocking would be in place at the site, preventing any calls from getting through.