Shanghai Eases Home Purchase Restrictions

Shanghai eased home purchase restrictions to allow a broader pool of buyers to purchase a second property in China’s financial center, Shanghai Securities News reported today.

The city loosened its definition of locals to let residence permit holders who have lived in the city for at least three years to buy a second home, the official newspaper affiliated with state-run Xinhua news agency said, citing an unidentified official of the city’s housing regulator. It previously limited the second-home option to locals, or those born in the city or who worked for an extended period of time and were officially recognized as locals, without specifying guidelines for non-locals.

“This is certainly a measure of easing,” said Jack Gong, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Jefferies Group Inc. “But the easing by the local government doesn’t mean the central government will loosen its property controls.”

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