Prices of homes beyond outlying Beijing ring roads soar at expo

Prices of new properties outside the 5th Ring Road of Beijing which is considered a remote area by local residents have exceeded 30,000 yuan ($4,902) per square meter, China National Radio (CNR) reported Sunday, citing home buyers at the four-day Beijing International Property Expo which ended Sunday.

Among the home projects on offer at the expo, new homes within the 6th Ring Road - even farther than the 5th Ring Road in Beijing, priced below 20,000 yuan per square meter could hardly be found, while some homes near the 5th Ring Road cost more than 40,000 yuan per square meter, according to the report.

The average price of homes between the 5th and 6th ring roads was more than 20,000 yuan per square meter while homes within the 3rd Ring Road cost an average of 65,000 yuan per square meter, it said.

"The fast rise of new home prices in Beijing is partly due to strong demand from home buyers and partly because developers have sufficient funds," Zhang Xu, an analyst at real estate brokerage Homelink, told the Global Times Sunday.

The report came after data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Wednesday which showed new home prices in first-tier cities rose faster than those in second- and third-tier cities in August.

Average new home prices in the first-tier cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou rose 18 to 20 percent in August from a year earlier while those in 31 second-tier cities rose between 7 percent and 10 percent and those in third-tier cities rose around 6 percent, the NBS data said.

"The imbalance in supply and demand of homes in first-tier cities is more severe than in other cities and thus faces greater price pressure," real estate brokerage Homelink

said in a research report sent to the Global Times on Sunday.

In March, local governments in major cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou rolled out detailed regulations to cool down the housing market but the effects were less obvious than market expectation.