One more Chinese city scraps housing purchase limit

A housing project in Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu province. Nanjing scraps housing purchase limit to revive local property market  on Sept 21. [Photo/Asianewsphoto]

NANJING - Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu province, announced on Sunday to end housing purchase restrictions in a bid to revive local property market.

In a notice released by the municipal government of Nanjing, the city will increase the supply of small and medium-sized apartments in the future.

Currently, sluggish sales left housing inventories overstocked in Nanjing. Meng Xiangyuan, a real estate scholar with Nanjing Forestry University, estimated that 51,000 new homes had yet to be sold in the city.

The city placed housing purchase limits to restrict local residents to two homes amid a spate of other measures to cool off the then red hot property market in early 2011.

In order to revive the market and boost economy, more than 30 Chinese cities announced to lift or loosen the housing purchase limit this year. Only six others including first-tier cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou still keep the policy.