Shanghai plans regular safety checks on houses

Shanghai is going to pilot housing safety management measures including introducing a housing pension scheme in the city's Pudong New Area this year, an effort to garner experience to better facilitate existing housing upgrade and enhance people's housing quality and living environment.

It was mentioned by Shanghai Mayor Gong Zheng during a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Shanghai Municipal People's Congress on Tuesday along with other issues, including employment stabilization, government-subsidized rental housing development, housing safety management and electric bicycle management.

The housing safety management system will be piloted in districts including Pudong New Area this year, which will be expanded across the city next year based on the results of these trials. Measures including regular inspections of residential buildings, introduction of a housing safety insurance system and the creation of a housing pension scheme will be conducted.

"By adhering to development for the people, we will strive to improve the basic public service system, strengthen people's inclusive, basic and comprehensive livelihood, build a resilient and safe city at accelerated pace, and spare no effort to ensure people's happiness and safety," Gong said.

"Shanghai's initiative takes the lead in introducing housing safety management policies and plays a positive role in exploring the mechanism," said Guan Rongxue, a senior analyst at the Zhuge Real Estate Data Research Center.

According to Guan, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development lately noted to accelerate the construction of a housing system with regards to regular check-ups of physical conditions, housing insurance and housing pension.

"Just like human being, housing will also get old and sick. Therefore, we should establish a system to take regular checks on homes, set up an insurance system to guarantee housing quality and supervise the safety of homes," said Wang Shengjun, the ministry's spokesman during a regular briefing of the State Council Information Office earlier this month.

"Furthermore, a housing pension system should be built to provide capital for physical examinations, repairs and insurance of the residential properties. The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development will accelerate the development of these three systems."

"In many cities, pre-owned homes have outnumbered newly built ones in the year, so the maintenance and renovation of existing homes will become a huge task for these cities' real estate development," said Chen Sheng, president of the China Real Estate Data Academy.

In Shanghai, residential space in the city's urban areas has exceeded 760 million square meters of gross floor area, official data shows.

"It is equivalent to more than 7 million units of residential apartments. And as the amount keeps growing, all of the flats will face the problems of maintenance and upgrade at certain time," said Chen.

Yan Yuejin, vice-president of Shanghai E-House China Real Estate Research Institute, said the renovation of the abundant existing housing will equally present gigantic market potential to explore.

"The measures will help integrate the fragmented models of different districts into an all-around methodology to facilitate upgrade of existing old residential communities in Shanghai as a whole," said Yan.