2012-03-28

Survey of Chinese opinions on housing

ifeng.com carried out a survey on their website (十问 “总理房价”). It asked 10 questions of visitors and over 800,000 people participated (thus far). I have translated relevant portions below, click on the pictures to increase the size. Important results: the average respondent is between 30 and 35, which makes this a very good survey in terms of who would be buying homes. Over 80% of the respondents earn about ¥4,000 per month, which is livable in first tier city (most restaurants now pay more than ¥2000 per month for entry level staff) and decent in smaller cities. The results show that there's a great number of potential home buyers. In some places the responses are wishful thinking, such as the question on how much home prices should fall to reach a reasonable level, although later, respondents were split as to whether prices would fall to that reasonable level. Note that they also have no confidence in rising wages and don't believe government housing is the answer: they want prices to fall. Luckily for them, that is what the market will do if allowed, though unlucky for them if it massively slows the economy too.



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