Guangzhou measures to curb housing prices

South China's Guangzhou has announced seven measures to enhance land supply and supervision of its use. It's the second city to implement central government's measures to control housing prices.

The most attention-grabbing measure is that the city government has decided to impose a 20 per cent tax on the cost of land left idle. It says it has greatly increased the tax, and will start charging it straightaway.

According to the country's latest regulations, the land purchase deposit should be no lower than 20 percent of the total price, and the downpayment should be no less than 50 percent. Guangzhou is also insisting developers pay off the deposit within a year.

Guangzhou will also no longer sell plots of land larger than 200 thousand square meters. Guangzhou municipal government says it will also introduce new measures to assess bids for land at auctions rather than just price in order to control unreasonable price increases.

The municipal government says it will invest 4.5 billion yuan, and provide more than one square kilometer of land this year for housing for people on low incomes. Around three million square meters of housing will be built for 25 thousand low income families.

The measures also seek to increase overall land supply for homes, and encourage developers to build houses on unused land.