Renting will become more mainstream for residents in China’s big cities, as the governments encourage commercial developers to build rental-only apartments, said Zhu Xunyao, a staff commentator at Southern Weekly.
The Guangzhou government in Guangdong Province has recently given tenants the same rights to education as those enjoyed by homeowners, especially in terms of access to local public schools. In a move to secure housing for local residents, for many of whom houses have become increasingly unaffordable, around 10 large cities, including Shanghai, have vowed to offer land to developers to build apartments for renting only.
Rental yields are expected to be much higher for developers with full ownership of the properties than for individual landlords, Zhu said, believing that commercial developers will be highly motivated to build rental-only residences.
The introduction of established property developers and management professionals is expected to improve the quality of the rental market, which has been dominated by either individual landlords or the government, according to Zhang.
The emergence of specialized house rental businesses in first-and second-tier cities will also change the institutional culture of the industry, helping clarify the legal relations between tenants and landlords, thus letting young people rest assured that renting a home can also be a long-term choice, she said.
Old Version
