The Performance and Problems of Affordable Housing Policy in China: the Estimations of Benefits, Costs and Affordability

 

( Department of Land & Real Estate Management, Renmin University of China, Beijing)

Abstract: The affordable housing program in China started in 1994, experiencing the initial stage, the fast development stage and the adjustment stage during the past 14 years. The total net benefits of this policy are estimated to range from ￥234,176.7 million to ￥271,020.4 million, based on the Cobb-Douglas utility function. The costs are divided into sunk costs and current costs, computed to be ￥447,598.63 million and ￥328,685.21 million, respectively. The supply size of affordable dwellings is far from enough due to the low housing affordability in China. We discuss the reasons of low benefits and high costs, and finally give the recommendations.

Key Words: Affordable Housing, Net benefits, Costs, Housing Affordability

1. INTRODUCTION

China started the affordable housing program in 1994, supporting families to own their homes. The prices of these houses are controlled in three ways: (1) the land are not bought from the market but allocated freely by the government; (2) all administrative fees and a half of taxes are waived; (3) the profit rate of affordable housing project are required to be no more than 3 percent. Therefore, these public dwellings offer prices which are more than 40 percent below market level.

Public concern over the affordable housing policy in China arises from three factors. First of all, buying affordable houses has become an effective method for many low–income families to solve their housing problems. In recent years, the housing price in most cities has experienced the rapid increase. For example, from 1999 to 2005, the average housing price increased by 116 percent in Shanghai, 85 percent in Tianjin, 76 percent in Chongqing and 29 percent in Beijing, faster than the increase of the income. Furthermore, the government would no longer allow state–owned enterprises (SOE) to allocate welfare housing to their employees after 1999. As a result, more and more families turn to affordable houses because of the low prices: in 2005, their average price accounted for 57 percent of average housing price in Beijing and 78 percent in both of Chongqing and Tianjin.

Secondly, the cost of affordable housing policy is very high. From 1994 to 2007, more than one billion square meters of affordable housing units were completed, with all of their land price and part of their taxes waived. Aside from this, the profit rate of every affordable housing project is also under control. All of these policies are meant to lower the price of affordable houses so that they can remain affordable to low–income families. Therefore, the effects of these resources and the problems of this policy are increasingly becoming an important concern of policy makers and economists.

In the third place, there are still many problems associated with this public housing program. For instance, some rich families also moved into the affordable dwellings because of the unclear regulation of deserving households; the construction and supply of affordable houses declined significantly in recent four years, resulting to the present housing problems to some extent; it is difficult to ask some participants to leave their public shelters even when they are already rich enough to afford the commercial houses, because they are not tenants but occupiers. Such problems lead to the unfairness and welfare losses.

The affordable housing is raised as a major concern of the academia in China. Since 1999, there have been many papers assessing this program, most from the perspective of policy makers. Some papers such as Yin Kunhua (1999), Wang Chengqing (2003), and Long Fenjie (2005), agreed that the goals of this policy are to increase the housing supply, change the structure of the real estate investment, and stimulate the housing demand. Feng Changchun (1999) held that the policy had some problems in pricing, housing size, and constructions regulations. Jiang Wanjun and Yu Zhijun (2005) analyzed problems of the policy in the aspects of price and government regulation. However, most of these papers used qualitative methods, lacking quantitative and dynamic evaluations, partly due to the lack of necessary data. For example, it is generally agreed that increasing the affordability is an important goal of the affordable housing program, but the extent and trend of this effect are not yet clear.

International economists, however, focused on the welfare effects and costs of the public housing. Based on the cardinal utility theory, some authors such as Blanc (2001), Olsen (1983), John Kraft and Arthur (1979), computed the consumer surplus with the general function: , where P_s and P_m (Q_s and Q_m) are unit price (quantity of housing price) respectively in the public sector and private sector. Based on the ordinal utility theory, Malpezzi (1998), Adams (1982), Sumka and Stegmant (1978) and DeSalvo (1975), assumed the budget constraints and the utility function (CES or Cobb-Douglas for most part) to estimate consumer benefits. Blanc (2001), Olsen (2001) and Murray (1975) examined the distribution of the consumer surplus, and Malpezzi (1993) compared welfare benefits in six different cities. However, they did not focus on Chinese issues, perhaps because the data is unavailable. So the benefits and costs of China’s public housing are still unknown.

This paper sorts out these issues. According to the time series data from 1997 to 2006 on variables of the housing market, such as price, sales and income, we study the effects of affordable housing, employing the Cobb-Douglas utility function. We not only estimate the actual benefits and costs, but also try to compute the maximum benefits of affordable housing program every year. In order to evaluate this housing policy, the homeownership affordability and user costs are also measured.

The remainder of the paper is divided into five parts. The second section introduces the development and policy changes of this housing program, and divided its development into three stages. In the section 3, the methodologies are presented, including the assumptions, Cobb-Douglas function used to estimate consumer benefits, Housing Affordable Index employed to measure the affordability, etc. The section 4 makes a brief description of the data, and estimates some important parameters such as the rent-income ratio. In the fifth section, our empirical results are presented, and some discussions about affordable housing policy are also involved. The last section summarizes our conclusions and gives policy recommendations.

2. THE DEVELOPMENT OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING POLICY

In the thirteen years from 1994 to 2006, the affordable housing policy experienced three development stages. The main cause of these changes is the policy – the government controls the land supply and construction plan of affordable houses, and thus plays an important role in this program.

2.1 Initial Stage

The initial stage of affordable housing policy started in the second half of 1994 and lasted for 4 years. In June of 1994, the Circular of the State Council, “Deepening the Housing Reform,” proposed the construction of affordable housing for the first time. This action marked the implementation of the affordable housing policy. Under the specific guidance of subsequent policies such as the “Procedures for Management of Urban Affordable Housing Construction,” affordable houses were built in the name of National Housing at that time. Table 1 shows that the construction area increased by almost 90% from 1996 to 1998, but its proportion to that of total housing is still low. Therefore, the features of the initial stage can be summarized as: high development speed and small construction size.

Table 1

Construction of Affordable Housing, 1996 – 1998

Source: Statistical Yearbook of the Investment in Fixed Assets, 1996 – 1998.

2.2 Fast Development Stage

The fast development stage lasted from July of 1998 to June 2003. In July 1998, the State Council’s Circular of “Further Deepening the Urban Housing Reform and Accelerating the Housing Construction” proposed to establish a housing market that mainly consisted of public houses. Then the construction of affordable shelters began to rise significantly. During these five years, the affordable housing policy was prompted by a series of industrial and financial policies. Figure 1 and Table 2 indicate that the newly–started area and sales area both grew rapidly between 1998 and 2000. In short, during this stage, the development of affordable housing can be summarized as a process with fast growth and large size.

Table 2

Housing Construction in China, 1998 – 2003

	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003
Affordable Housing under Construction (1,000㎡)	13327.6	17700.0	18575.5	22552.7	20950.1	20023.0
Total Housing under Construction (1,000㎡)	36223.0	42590.3	50498.3	61583.0	73208.7	91390.5
Ratio	36.79%	41.56%	48.07%	36.62%	28.62%	21.91%

Source: the Ministry of Construction.

Figure 1：Construction and Sales of Affordable Housing in China

Source: Statistical Yearbook, 1997 – 2006.

2.3 Adjustment Stage

The adjustment stage started from the second half of 2003 and has lasted up to the present. In August of 2003, the State Council’s Circular of “Promoting the Stable Development of the Real Estate Market" proposed a new housing supply structure, where “ordinary commercial housing” was supposed to be the main constituents. Then the supply of affordable housing began to decline rapidly. In 2004, the "Management Rules of Affordable Housing" was promulgated, including more restrictive regulations. For example, the floor area of affordable housing units were required to vary between 60 and 80 square meters, and the profit rate of developers were required t, o be less than 3 percent. In December of 2007, according to the central government, the affordable housing size must be controlled to 60 square meters, and they would be provided to low–income families only. The definition of “low–income families”, however, is not given yet. As shown in Figure 1, the newly–started area fell from 20.1% to 17.5% from 2004 to 2005, and the sales also declined.

3. THE METHODOLOGY

3.1 Assumptions

There are two markets offering commercial dwellings and public dwellings respectively. Consumers who are not poor enough to move into public dwellings only can buy homes in the private sector, while other households can consume the housing service in both two sectors.

To every consumer, there are two goods – housing and a nonhousing good which we use as a numeraire – and a continuum of measure one of consumers. The nonhousing good might be the leisure, or might be a composite good including leisure. The affordable housing is assumed to be an unobservable bundle of housing services per unit of time. This service offers the occupiers with numerous attributes such as the space, location and quantity. In addition, the price and income elasticities of housing demand are assumed to be unity, so the Cobb-Douglas function will be eligible.

Between commercial houses and affordable houses, we also assume that there is no significant difference in housing characteristics, such as the location, period of construction, housing size, family size, number of rooms and plot ratio. In fact, there is no special regulation on affordable houses except in housing size–the floor area was required to vary between 60 and 80 square meters in 1998, and is further restricted to about 60 square meters now. But these regulations did not lead to a big difference: the average housing size in cities of China ranged from 57 to 77 square meters between 1997 and 2006, very similar to the restricted areas. Moreover, in order to prevent the slum area and other social problems, China has tried to minimize the difference between affordable and commercial houses. For example, the big affordable housing community is avoided in many cities; the affordable housing projects are encouraged to locate near the streets and subway stations instead of suburban areas. In recent years, many cities such as Beijing, required the developers to build certain amount of affordable houses – say, 5 or 10 percent of the total units, in every commercial housing project. So generally speaking, the housing characteristics in the private sector and the public sector are similar.

3.2 Estimating Benefits

Figure 2 presents that the nonsubsidized consumer maximizes satisfaction by consuming R amount of housing at the point of T. The affordable housing participants, however, have higher level of utility curve S', with the budget line ZX' in Figure 2. Suppose that M' represents the occupiers’ income associated with ZX, and M' represents that with ZX'. Then the net benefits of occupiers, T_nb, which is the consumer surplus resulted from the affordable housing policy, is shown as follows:

                                 (1)

S

S’

Q

Z

W

X

R’

R

0

X’’

T

H

Figure 2: Choices of Participants and Non–Participants of Affordable Housing Program

However,  is hard to observe directly, so here we use the Cobb–Douglas utility function developed by Joseph Desalvo (1971). The occupier’s choice problem can be expressed as:

Maximize U(H, Q),                       (2)

subject to the budget constraint assumed as:

 (0＜α＜1)                         (3)

where P_q is the price of Q, which represents other goods, and P_h is the market housing price. 0＜α＜1 because affordable housing price is less than the market price.

The relevant Lagrangian is:

                (4)

where λ is the multiplier on the budget constraint. A positive λ suggests that increasing the expenditure on housing and other goods would increase the utility. The first–order conditions are:

Finally we get the results:

                                  (5)

                              (6)

Suppose the amount of housing occupied by the participant is R', and secure Q' amount of other goods with income M'. Then the utility function is as following:

                             (7)

In order to calculate the M'' that can bring the same utility level to non–participants as those to affordable housing residents with the income M', we substitute the function 6 and 7, with α＝1, into the utility function 1, and set S＝S':

           (8)

and M'' is solved as:

                      (9)

where P_hH' is the market price of affordable housing (P_m), and αP_hH' is the project price (P_p). As for β, the occupier’s current observed rent-income ratio cannot be used to estimate its value, because his/her housing expenditure is usually different from the normal level. But the market rent to income ratio is available as the value of β. So the net tenant benefits (T_nb) can be shown as follows:

                 (10)

If the values of P_m, P_p, and β were given, the net benefits would become the function of M'. Holding that P_m, P_p and β are constant in a certain period, the maximum benefits can be calculated by derivations:

So the net benefits will reach the highest point only when:

   (11)

3.2 Estimating Costs

The direct costs of affordable housing include the government’s revenue loss due to the exempt of land price (P_L), administrative fees (F) and taxes (T), plus the profit loss (PL) of developers due to the profit regulation. Thus, the estimated resource cost (C) of affordable housing becomes:

                       (12)

However, P_L and L are both unobservable, and the values of T and F are not published by the government. So it is hard to compute the costs based on the equation (12). But if the market value of affordable housing (P_m) – involving all the land price, fees, taxes and the average profits – can be estimated, the total costs of affordable dwellings will be considered as the difference between market price and project price (P_p). So the following equation will be employed:

                          (13)

where S is the construction amount of affordable houses. The value of C is the sunk cost, which was already incurred and cannot be recovered. But some of these resources still can make benefits in the future. For example, when the vacant houses are bought by deserving households, the benefits will be made. So to compare the benefits and costs, the current costs are also necessary to estimate. It contains the sunk costs of occupied affordable houses, plus the depreciation of vacant dwellings. Here we use the straight–line depreciation method, where the age of affordable housing assumed to be 70 years, and the residual value rate to be 5 percent.

3.3 Estimating the Housing Affordability

On the measurement of homeownership affordability, many Chinese papers, such as Zhang Qingyong (2007), Niu Yi (2007) and Luo Liqun (2006), used the approach of price-income ratio. The general function of it is shown in the below:

×100％                       (14)

where P_a is the average housing price; HS is the average housing size; AI is the average income. This method directly presents the relation between house price and income, but fails to take into account the interest rate, the fluctuations of which also change the affordability. In the United States, however, some organizations monitor the affordability of homeownership by considering price, income and interest rate. For example, the National Association of Realtors compute the monthly payments required to amortize the standard mortgage on the median house sold. Some Chinese and international papers, such as Xiang (2006) and Quigley (2004) used this index to measure the homeownership affordability, but this target is likely to ignore the down payments. Therefore, we compute the homeownership affordability in the aspects of both monthly payments and down payments, using the following functions:

                         (15)

where r₁ is deposit interest rate; r₂ is the mortgage interest rate; P is the average housing price. The homeownership affordability is measured by our new HAI index.

To homeowners, however, it is important to measure the user costs of occupied housing. In the perspective of an economist, the annual user cost rate includes not only the depreciation and maintenance expenditures (at the rate of dm), but also the real interest rate (i_r) and capital gains (at the rate of g). Thus, the user cost (UC) can be computed as follows:

                      (16)

To tenants, the burdens mainly consist of housing rents. The market rents in housing markets, however, are not available. So it is hard to estimate the costs of rental housing. But this issue will not weaken the research results to a large extent, because the homeownership rate in China had already reached 82 percent in 2006, and most tenants are also trying to buy houses according to the Chinese tradition. So the homeownership affordability is much more important for renters.

4. THE DATA

4.1 Data Description

The data was drawn from the China Statistical Yearbook from 1997 to 2006, published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The NBS reported the housing prices, sales areas, newly-started areas and so on in both private and public sectors. Household characteristics are also reported, such as housing area per capita and the average income. These data are shown in the Appendix A. The NBS also classified families into seven groups according to the incomes (see Appendix B for details).

In the data from the NBS, the average house price, sales area and newly-started area include both the commercial houses and affordable houses. However, these two kinds of housing are not transferred in the same market, because they have different consumers, price regulations and government supports. Therefore, the specific prices of commercial houses are computed based on the overall data, and are listed in Appendix A.

The website of People’s Bank of China reports the changes of interest rates. See Appendix C for details. These data are used in the estimations of housing affordability, housing rent, etc.

From other resources, we also collected some data which are crucial in this study: (1) according to the People’s Daily issued in Feb. 2^nd of 2007, the affordable housing program had benefited about 15 million people by the end of 2006; (2) the Ministry of Construction reported that between 1998 and 2003, 477 million square meters of affordable dwellings were completed, assisting over 6 million middle and low income families; (3) the Ministry of Construction reported that the homeownership rate in China had reached 82 percent in the year of 2006.

The data of affordable housing from 1994 to 1996 is still unavailable from the NBS. However, since the supply and sales of public shelters were very small at that time, the lack of these data will not influence the research results significantly.

4.2 Rent of the Commercial Housing

Although the NBS has never reported the rents in the private housing markets, their values still can be estimated using the income approach of the real estate appraisal:

                                (17)

where A is annual rent; r_c is the return rate in the housing market; and n is the use life of housing.

The return rate is equal to the risk–free interest rate plus the risk adjustment. But there is only a few studies focusing on the estimation of the return rate in the real estate industry. According to Zhan (2006), most real estate appraisers in China u, se the one–year mortgage interest rate as the value of r_c. So in this study, we also follow this approach. If the interest rate changed in one year, the weighted average will be used as the value of r_c this year.

The value of n for residential housing is assumed to be 70, for the urban land use right of residential real estate is valid within 70 years in China. Finally, the average housing rents in each year are estimated (shown by Figure 3). The commercial housing rent was low between the year of 1998 and 2003, mainly because of the stable housing price and the low interest rates. After 2003, however, the housing price rose fast, and the interest rate was also raised slightly, jointly resulting into the rapid rise of the housing rent.

Figure 3: The Estimations of the Average Rent of Commercial Housing

4.3 Market Price of Affordable Housing

By now, there is still no research trying to estimate the market value of China’s public dwellings. The Hedonic model seems to be en effective method in this work, and was employed to estimate shelters’ market price in some papers such as Blanc (2001). That is to say, the market price of a house has relationship with its characteristics, including the location, number of rooms, housing size, dwelling quality, house age, public safety, assess to rail, air quality, etc. If one or more variables change, the house’s market price will also rise or decline in response to the variances.

Theoretically, the two houses with the same characteristics will have the same value in a competitive market. According to the previous assumption, the overall characteristics of affordable houses are considered to be similar to those of private dwellings. In that case, the market value of each housing characteristic, such as number of rooms, should be constant no matter it is a commercial housing or an affordable housing. Therefore, in terms of the unit price, the market value of affordable shelters is equivalent to that of private dwellings. The latter is used as the market price of affordable houses.

4.4 Characteristics of Affordable Housing Occupiers

The characteristics of affordable housing buyers are still not available – we do not know the income, age, family size, or even the exact population of them. As a result, we have to made approximate estimations of the income and the number of public dwelling occupiers.

The incomes of occupiers are estimated based on the policy contents and the housing supply structure. According to the State Council’s notice – “Further Deepening the Urban Housing Reform and Accelerating the Housing Construction” issued in July 1998, the affordable housing were provided to all middle and low income families. Nevertheless, the policy was changed five years later, when another State Council’s Circular informed that the commercial housing should become the main proportion of housing supply. In September of 2006 and December of 2007, the central government emphasized twice that public housing only supported the low income households. In fact, as the Figure 4 shows, the proportion of affordable houses in total housing supply has never exceeded 25 percent. Therefore, the net tenant benefits will also be computed, given that only the bottom one or two quintile people were qualified participants.

As for the amount of occupiers, the available data shows that about 15 million people had moved into affordable dwellings by the end of 2006. But the exact number of new occupiers in each year is unavailable. To complete the cost-benefit analysis, we may simply assume that the number of new participants was constant every year from 1997 to 2006.

Figure 4: The Proportion of Affordable Housing in the Housing Supply, in Terms of Newly-started Area and Sales Area

5. ESTIMATION RESULTS AND COMMENTS

5.1 Benefits

The NBS classifies the population into seven groups by the disposable income per capita, from low to high (see Appendix B). Table 3 presents the estimations of net benefits for every occupier under different assumptions. The average benefits of every participant was ￥8,229, given that their average income was equal to that of the bottom 80 percent people, according to the State Council’s document issued in July 1998.

But it is more wised to made estimations based on the housing statistics data, instead of the policy. So as the Figure 4 indicates, we assume that affordable housing occupiers’ incomes were much lower – for example, approximate to those of the bottom quintile or 40 percent households. In that case, the net benefits are estimated to be ￥8,786 or ￥9,757, respectively. And the total net benefits from 1997 to 2006 are computed as ￥234,176.7 million or ￥271,020.4 million. Theoretically, the maximum benefits are ￥279,731.05.

Given the values of parameters of P_m, P_p, and β, the actual benefit function in each year are shown in the Appendix D. According to the function (11), the possible maximum benefits can be computed, presented in the Table 3, the associate income is shown in the Figure 5. As the project price declines, or the market price increases, the maximum benefits will rise. As the housing size or interest rate changes, the government can adjust the incomes of deserving households, so the maximum benefits will keep constant. So the policy maker plays an important role in the affordable housing program. For example, if the occupiers’ average income were regulated to ￥5,916 in 2006, the benefits would have reached ￥1,390 theoretically.

TABLE 3

Estimations of Annual Net Benefits per Capita, under Different Incomes

Figure 5: Incomes under the Maximum Benefits, Compared with those of Different Groups

5.2 Costs

Table 4 presents the sunk costs and current costs of affordable housing program. In these ten years, the annual sunk costs ranged from ￥14,095.62 million to ￥64,768.15 million, and the total reached ￥447,598.63 million. The sum of current costs were ￥328,685.21 million.

Therefore, the effects of affordable housing program are not very well, for the net benefits are less than the current costs, and even the maximum benefits do not exceed the costs.

There are some reasons for the low benefits and high costs based on our estimations. First, a lot of affordable houses are too large, decreasing the number of occupiers. Consider Beijing as an example, more than a half of public dwellings are larger than 90 square meters by 2002 (see Appendix E for details), while the average house size was less than 75 square meters. Such a phenomenon was due to the lack of building restrictions before the year of 2004. If the current costs are constant, as the house size declines, the number of participants increases, and the total benefits rise.

Second, the rapid rise of land price increases the costs of the affordable housing program, because both of the sunk costs and current costs mainly consist of the land value. The huge housing demand in recent 10 years increased the commercial housing price, the land price, and thus the market value of affordable housing. The real prices of allocated land are more and more high.

Finally, the current construction and sales mode of affordable housing are not efficient. The developers’ profits are regulated, discouraging their works. This might increase the project costs. Also, in this study we assume that the number of participants is constant every year, but in fact during the fast development stage there should be much more households moved into the affordable dwellings. So we are likely to underestimate the total benefits.

TABLE 4

The Costs of Affordable Housing Program

5.3 Housing Affordability and Affordable Housing Supply

Figure 6 shows that, when ignoring the capital gains, the user cost declined in the late 1990s and kept stable after 2000. However, if capital gains are involved, the user cost decreased dramatically after 2000, even lower than zero in most time. The rapid rise of housing price and the low interest rate are the causes of the extremely low or negative user costs. Therefore, homeowners’ cost is quite low, and more attention could be turned to the tenants.

Figure 7 presents the HAI affordability index of commercial housing and affordable housing, as well as the overall housing affordability. In the end of 1990s, the affordability rose because of the stable housing price and the decline of interest rate. Since the year of 2003, the affordability has decreased, mainly due to the rapid rise of commercial housing price and the slight inflation of interest rate. In 1997, it was the high interest rate that lowered the affordability, but it would not influence nonhousing families too much, because they could rent houses and wait for the low interest rate.

The housing problem in China is very serious according to the Figure 6. With the average income, a family was unable to afford the average commercial house. Especially in recent three years, such a family could only afford less than 60 percent of the monthly payment. Fortunately, the homeownership rate in Chinese cities is quite high – it reached 82 percent in 2006. But such a high rate mainly resulted from the welfare housing policy, which was abolished in 1999. So the low affordability in 2000s is worth the attention of policy makers.

The affordable housing program seems to be effective in the respect of affordability. Its unit price, on average, accounted for about 55 percent of the commercial housing. Therefore, the HAI index of the affordable dwelling was highly above that of the private dwelling. The price control policies, such as the waiver of land price and taxes, were effective.

However, the small supply size of affordable housing weakened the policy performance. Figure 4 shows that the supply of affordable housing declined dramatically after 2000. In recent three years, it accounted for less than 10 percent of the total housing supply. As a result, its influence on the whole housing problem, shown by the difference between commercial housing affordability and overall affordability, was still very small. The low housing affordability in China was not significantly changed by the affordable housing policy.

Therefore, it is important for China to raise the supply of public dwellings. But how many of them are enough? Ye Jianping (2005) compared the real estate market in different countries, using the Cluster Analysis and the data of GDP, homeownership rate, housing expenditure, income, urban population, real estate cycle, etc. His conclusion was that the current housing market in China was comparable to that of Japan and Germany in the period of 1970s – 1980s. From this point, the public housing in China should account for 10 percent – 20 percent of the total housing (see Appendix D for details). However, policy makers still need to understand net benefit functions, sunk costs, current costs, and housing affordability. They are presented in this paper. The household characteristics of nonhousing families and public shelter occupiers should be also taken into account.

Figure 6: User Cost of Housing Capital, 1997 – 2006

Figure 7: Housing Affordability Index, 1997 – 2006

6. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Based on the ordinal utility theory, we use the Cobb-Douglas function and budget constraint function, as well as the aggregated data from the NBS. This paper has made estimations of net occupier benefits, costs and housing affordability, from 1997 to 2006.

The net benefits ranged from ￥8,786 to ￥9,757 for every additional occupier under our assumptions. The net benefit functions of each year are also estimated. Our conclusions are different from some papers such as Sumka and Stegmant (1978), who held that the total benefits decrease with income. Instead, we conclude that the benefits will increase at first, and then decline when occupiers’ incomes keep rising and exceed the optimum point. Further, the maximum benefits of each year are also computed, given that house prices and rent-income ratio were constant every year.

The affordable housing program performed not very well in China, for the total benefits are less than the current costs. Moreover, Cobb-Douglas function is likely to overestimate the benefits, since Gallin (2006), Mayo (1980) and Quigley (1967) all concluded that the price and income elasticities of housing demand are slightly inelastic. However, since our study is likely to underestimate the total benefits by assuming that the number of new participants was constant every year, these two errors might be offset.

The price control of affordable housing is quite effective, for the affordability of these housing is very high. But in general, homeownership affordability is still low in cities of China, mainly due to the high price of commercial housing. Especially in recent three years, the family with the average income could only afford about 60 percent of the monthly payments. Although such a family was able to buy an average affordable home, the supply of these houses is very small, far from meeting the demand of low and middle income families.

Insufficient data on public shelters and occupiers’ characteristics leave some shortfalls in this study: (1) the exact benefits of occupiers are not estimated, and we only offer an estimation of its range instead; (2) the distribution of benefits cannot be studied due to the lack of individual data; (3) the research results may be weakened by the fact that some important variables, such as the commercial housing rent, are not actual data but estimated.

Finally, we offer some recommendations to improve China’s affordable housing program. First, investigate the household characteristics of public housing occupiers, such as the income, family size, home price and housing expenditure. These data will help a lot to the estimations of benefits function and thus contribute to the policy design. Second, set the participant regulation clearly and adjust it regularly. The parameters in the benefits function, such as the market price, project price and rent-income ratio, are usually fluctuating, so the monitoring system is necessary to improve the welfare efficiency. Third, increase the supply of affordable houses, since the welfare housing policy was abolished in 1999, and housing affordability is very low at present.

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APPENDIX A

APPENDIX B

Disposal Income Per Capita in Cities of China (RMB)

Source: Statistical Yearbook, 1997 – 2006.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

APPENDIX C

 

Deposit Rates (%)

Source: the website of People’s Bank of China, http://www.pbc.gov.cn/huobizhengce/huobizh

engcegongju/lilvzhengce/lilvshuiping/lishishuju.asp

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lending Rates (%)

Source: the website of People’s Bank of China, http://www.pbc.gov.cn/huobizhengce/huobizh

engcegongju/lilvzhengce/lilvshuiping/lishishuju.asp

APPENDIX D

 

The net benefit functions of each year:

1997:

1998:

1999:

2000:

2001:

2002:

2003:

2004:

2005:

2006:

APPENDIX E

Size of Affordable Housing in Beijing (square meters)

Source: Liu Hongyu, 1999, “The Report on Affordable Housing Program in Beijing.”

APPENDIX F

Housing Supply Structure in Some Countries(％)

Source: United Nations, 1997, “Annually Bulleting of Housing and Building Statistics for Europe and North America.”

 

 

 

附录：《中华人民共和国住宅法》立法建议稿及说明

《中华人民共和国住宅法》立法建议稿简要说明

本草案建议稿的立法原则和主要特点如下：

1．明确提出住宅权是每一个公民的基本人权。

2．明确提出保证低收入家庭和中产阶级家庭享有住宅社会保障和居住非营利公益性住房的权利，是必须长期坚持不可动摇的一项基本国策。

3．明确提出在城镇，建立和完善以非营利公益性住房为主的廉租住房、经济适用住房、合作住房和商品住房四类住房供应体系，对不同收入家庭实行不同的住房供应政策。与此相适应，必须建立和发展国有独资公共住房开发企业、住宅合作社、建筑开发商三支住宅建设开发队伍。

4．明确提出在农村，巩固和完善以农民自助为主、农民互助为辅的住房建设模式，建立健全农民住宅保障制度。

5．明确提出在全国城乡普遍实行一户一宅制度，对于包括廉租住房、经济适用住房、合作住房在内的公共住房和农民住房，强制实行一户一宅制度和准入退出制度。

6．明确提出设立国家住宅委员会和建设部住宅总局（专门机构）。

7．明确提出国家和各省（自治区、直辖市）、市、县（区）国民经济和社会发展规划须单独编制“城乡全面小康住宅规划”，重点解决城镇低收入家庭和新市民家庭的住房困难问题，逐步实现人人享有适当住房的目标，使全国居民住宅幸福指数达到人民满意的程度。

8．明确提出建立廉租住房制度、经济适用住房制度、合作住房制度、商品住房制度、旧区改造制度、新市民住房制度、农民住房制度、住宅计划制度、住宅登记制度、住宅土地制度、住宅财政制度、住宅税收制度、住宅金融制度、住宅行政制度、住宅法律责任制度。对于以上十五项制度均须分别制定相应法律，经全国人大常委会通过后颁布实施。

全文如下：

《中华人民共和国住宅法》立法建议稿

第一章  总  则

第一条  住宅权是每一个公民的基本人权。为确保公民居住权益，提高居住水平与公民住宅负担能力，改善住宅环境品质，使每一个家庭都能实现住有所居，特制定本法。

第二条  推行符合国情的住房建设模式和消费模式，保证低收入家庭和中产阶级家庭享有住宅社会保障和居住非营利公益性住房的权利，是必须长期坚持不可动摇的一项基本国策。

第三条  在城镇，建立和完善以非营利公益性住房为主的四类住房供应体系，对不同收入家庭实行不同的住房供应政策。低收入家庭租赁主要由人民政府提供的廉租住房，或购买主要由人民政府作为开发人直接提供的经济适用住房；中产阶级家庭购买或租赁主要由人民政府和住宅合作社提供的非营利公益性经济适用住房和合作住房；其他高收入家庭购买或租赁主要由建筑开发商提供的商品住房。与此相适应，须建立和发展国有独资公共住房开发企业、住宅合作社、建筑开发商三支住宅建设开发队伍。

第四条  在农村，巩固和完善以农民自助为主、农民互助为辅的住房建设模式，建立健全农民住宅保障制度。

第五条  在全国城乡普遍实行一户一宅制度，对于包括廉租住房、经济适用住房、合作住房在内的公共住房和农民住房，强制实行一户一宅制度和准入退出制度。

第六条  住宅决策协调机构，在中央一级为国家住宅委员会，负责制定发展城乡居民住宅的目标、方针、政策，协调解决工作实施中的重大问题。各级地方人民政府亦须设立住宅委员会，分别负责执行国家制定的发展城乡居民住房的目标、方针和政策，协调解决工作实施中的重大问题。

第七条  住宅管理机构，在中央一级为中华人民共和国建设部住宅总局（副部级），在各级地方人民政府为住宅办公室，分别负责国家和地方住宅建设的实施管理工作。

第八条  国务院和各级地方人民政府负责制定城乡居民住宅的中长期计划和年度计划，经本级人民代表大会讨论通过后予以实施。在优先处理的民生任务中，把人民的居住问题放在首位，并以包括廉租住房、经济适用住房、合作住房在内的公共住房建设和新农村住宅建设的人民满意度作为各级政府考核的重要标准。

第二章  廉租住房

第九条  城市廉租住房制度是解决低收入家庭住房困难的主要途径。全国所有城市都要对符合规定住房困难条件、申请廉租住房租赁补贴的城市低保家庭做到应保尽保；廉租住房制度保障范围要由城市最低收入住房困难家庭有计划地扩大到低收入住房困难家庭。

第十条  廉租住房保障对象的家庭收入标准和住房困难标准，由城市人民政府按照当地统计部门公布的家庭人均可支配收入和人均住房水平的一定比例，结合城市经济发展水平和住房价格水平确定。

廉租住房保障面积标准，由城市人民政府根据当地家庭平均住房水平、区别享受保障家庭人口状况及财政承受能力等因素统筹研究确定。新建廉租住房套型建筑面积控制在50平方米以内，主要在经济适用住房以及普通商品住房小区中配建，也可以考虑相对集中建设。

廉租住房保障对象的家庭收入标准、住房困难标准和区别家庭人口状况的保障面积标准实行动态管理，由城市人民政府每年向社会公布一次。

第十一条  城市廉租住房保障实行货币补贴和实物配租等方式相结合，通过发放租赁补贴，增强低收入家庭在市场上承租住房的能力。每平方米租赁补贴标准由城市人民政府根据当地经济发展水平、市场平均租金、保障对象的经济承受能力等因素确定。其中，对符合条件的城市低保家庭，可按当地的廉租住房保障面积标准和市场平均租金给予补贴。

第十二条  采取政府新建、收购、改建以及鼓励社会捐赠等方式增加廉租住房供应。市、县（区）人民政府须组建国有独资公共住房开发企业，加大廉租住房建设力度。委托住宅合作社和开发商建设的廉租住房，须在用地规划和土地出让条件中明确规定项目的非营利公益性，建成后由政府收回或回购。

第十三条  对申请廉租住房补贴和实物配租的家庭实行街道办事处（乡、镇）、县（区）、市三级审核、街道办事处（乡、镇）、县（区）两级公示制度。家庭成员已享受廉租住房政策或参与廉租住房申请的，不得重复申请。

第十四条  建设、收购的廉租住房产权登记在县（区）政府委托的单位名下，按照属地原则进行管理。建设、收购的廉租住房的产权人不得将房屋转让、抵押。

廉租住房只能用于申请家庭及其成员自住，不得转租、转借以及从事居住以外的任何活动。享受廉租住房保障的家庭，每年应按时向住房保障管理部门提供住房、收入、人口及资产变动情况，住房保障管理部门会同有关部门对其申报情况进行复核，并按照复核结果，调整租赁住房补贴金额或者实物配租面积。不及时、不如实申报家庭住房、收入、家庭人口及资产状况的，依据有关规定予以处理。

住房保障管理部门定期对享受廉租住房保障的家庭住房、收入、人口及资产状况进行复核，对家庭收入连续一年超出规定收入标准的，取消其廉租住房保障资格，停发租赁住房补贴，或者在合理期限内收回廉租住房。

第三章  经济适用住房

第十五条  经济适用住房是指政府提供优惠政策，限定建设标准、保障对象和销售价格，解决低收入家庭和中产阶级家庭住房困难的政策性住房。经济适用住房分为面向低收入家庭的经济适用房（简称低收经适房）和面向中产阶级的经济适用房（简称中产经适房）两种类型。对符合规定住房困难条件、申请购买经济适用住房的城市中、低收入家庭须做到应保尽保。

第十六条  经济适用住房保障对象的家庭收入标准和住房标准，由城市人民政府按照当地统计部门公布的家庭人均可支配收入和人均住房水平的一定比例，结合城市经济发展水平和住房价格水平确定。

经济适用住房保障面积标准，由城市人民政府根据当地家庭平均住房水平、区别享受保障家庭人口状况及财政承受能力等因素统筹研究确定，其中，低收经适房套型建筑面积控制在65平方米以内；中产经适房套型建筑面积控制在90平方米以内。

经济适用住房保障对象的家庭收入标准、住房标准和区别家庭人口状况的保障面积标准实行动态管理，由城市人民政府每年向社会公布一次。

第十七条  市、县（区）人民政府每年都要按照计划建设一定规模的经济适用住房。房价较高、住房结构性矛盾突出的城市，要增加经济适用住房供应。经济适用住房须主要由国有独资公共住房开发企业和住宅合作社开发建设。委托开发商建设的经济适用住房，须在用地规划和土地出让条件中明确规定项目的非营利公益性，建成后由政府收回或回购。

第十八条  经济适用住房工作坚持政府主导，遵循以下原则：以区为主、全市统筹；自愿申请、逐级审核；公开透明、分期轮候；封闭运行、动态监管。

对申请购买经济适用住房的家庭实行街道办事处（乡、镇）、县（区）、市三级审核、街道办事处（乡、镇）、县（区）两级公示制度。对符合标准的，纳入经济适用住房供应对象范围。家庭成员已享受经济适用住房政策或参与经济适用住房申请的，不得重复申请。过去享受过福利分房或购买过经济适用住房的家庭不得再购买经济适用住房。

第十九条  经济适用住房属于政策性公共住房，购房人仅拥有有限产权。个人全资购买的经济适用住房，产权性质为私人所有，产别为“经济适用住房私有房产”。

第二十条  经济适用住房只能用于申请家庭及其成员自住，不得转租、转借以及从事居住以外的任何活动。已经购买了经济适用住房的家庭又购买其他住房的，或购房人因各种原因确需转让经济适用住房的，原经济适用住房由政府按规定回购，不得直接上市交易；或按照经济适用住房转让办法在经济适用住房交易中心挂牌向符合购买条件的家庭转让。经济适用住房转让后，五年内不得重新申请。上述规定应在经济适用住房购房合同中予以明确。回购的经济适用住房，继续向符合条件的低收入家庭出售。

第四章  合作住房

第二十一条  合作住房是属于经济适用住房范围内的政策性保障住房，是住宅合作社通过社员集资合作建造的住房。住宅合作社是由城市居民为改善自身住房条件而自愿参加，不以营利为目的公益性合作经济组织，具有社团法人资格。

住宅合作社的主要任务是：发展社员，组织本社社员合作建造住宅；负责社内房屋的管理、维修和服务；培育社员互助合作意识；向当地人民政府有关部门反映社员的意见和要求；兴办社员居住生活服务的其他事业。

第二十二条  国家鼓励和扶持社会型住宅合作社的发展。住宅合作社的设立实行准则登记制，具有民事行为能力的公民、企业法人、社团法人和群众团体，均有权发起设立本行政区域内城镇居民参加的社会型住宅合作社。住宅合作社的设立须面向社会征集单位社员和个人社员，来自社会各界的非发起单位的社员，须占社员总数的30％以上。

住宅合作社的设立须经市、县（区）人民政府住宅主管部门进行资质审查，由市、县（区）人民政府民政主管部门依法登记注册。

住宅合作社的变更、合并、分立与终止均须依照国家有关法律法规进行。

第二十三条  住宅合作社实行独立核算、民主管理、自我服务和第三者监管制度。社员大会和社员代表大会是住宅合作社的权力机关，由全体社员组成。理事会是代表和执行机关；监事会是监督机关，均由社员大会和社员代表大会选举产生。

住宅合作社的资金实行签约银行监管制度。住宅合作社的财务机构由签约会计师事务所派出，并由签约会计师事务所派出代表担任财务总监。财务实行公开化、透明化管理，定期向社员公布工程进度、财务收支和工程费用情况。住宅合作社理事会成员必须有法律顾问和房地产专家作为独立理事参加，监事会成员必须有银行监管代表和签约审计师事务所代表作为独立监事参加。

第二十四条  合作住房属于政策性公共住房，保障对象必须是无房户和住房困难户，且在城市中有固定工作、购房自住的常住人口。购房人仅拥有有限产权。个人全资购入的合作住房，产权性质为私人所有，产别为“合作住房私有房产”。

第二十五条  合作住房的保障方式主要是政府在土地、税收、金融等方面提供支持；住宅合作社在非营利公益性的原则下向社员提供成本价普通商品住房。同时，创造条件推行合作住房的租赁和部分产权制度。

合作住房的套型建筑面积须控制在90平方米以内。

第二十六条  合作住房遵循自愿申请、逐级审核；公开透明、分期轮候；封闭运行、动态监管的审核销售原则。对申请购买合作住房的家庭实行街道办事处（乡、镇）、县（区）、市三级审核，街道办事处（乡、镇）、县（区）两级公示制度。对符合标准的，纳入合作住房保障对象范围。家庭成员已享受合作住房政策或参与合作住房申请的，不得重复申请。过去享受过福利分房或购买过经济适用住房的家庭不得再购买合作住房。

第二十七条  非本地城镇常住人口，不得加入住宅合作社，不得以任何名义购买合作住房。购买合作住房只能用于申请家庭及其成员自住，不得上市转让、出租或出借以及从事居住以外的任何活动。已经购买了合作住房的家庭又购买其他住房的，或购房人因各种原因确需转让合作住房的，由住宅合作社按照规定进行回购，或按照合作住房转让办法在合作住房交易中心挂牌向符合购买合作住房条件的家庭转让。合作住房转让后，五年内不得重新申请。上述规定应在合作住房购房合同中予以明确。住宅合作社回购的合作住房，可向符合条件的住宅合作社社员家庭出售。

第五章  商品住房

第二十八条  房地产开发企业是以营利为目的，从事房地产开发和经营的企业，简称开发商。商品住房是开发商以营利为目的建设的居民住宅和公寓。开发商须兼顾社会利益，重点发展中低价位、中小套型普通商品住房，增加住房有效供应。城市新审批、新开工的住房建设，套型建筑面积90平方米以下住房面积所占比重，必须达到开发建设总面积的70%以上。

积极发展住房租赁市场，鼓励建筑开发企业开发建设中小户型住房面向社会出租。

第二十九条  境内居民购买的第一套商品住房，有权享受国家的低首付、优惠利率商业贷款政策和公积金贷款政策。境内居民购买的第二套及以上商品住房，不得享受国家的低首付、优惠利率商业贷款政策和公积金贷款政策。

对购买首套自住房且套型建筑面积在90平方米以下的，贷款首付款比例(包括本外币贷款，下同)不得低于20%；对购买首套自住房且套型建筑面积在90平方米以上的，贷款首付款比例不得低于30%；对已利用贷款购买住房、又申请购买第二套(含)以上住房的，贷款首付款比例不得低于40%，贷款利率不得低于中国人民银行公布的同期同档次基准利率的1.1倍，而且贷款首付款比例和利率水平应随套数增加而大幅度提高，具体提高幅度由商业银行根据贷款风险管理相关原则自主确定，但借款人偿还住房贷款的月支出不得高于其月收入的50%。

第三十条  中华人民共和国境外居民和外国居民，在境内工作或合法居留满一年，只可以购买一套自住商品住房，但不能享受国家的低首付、优惠利率商业贷款政策。

境外机构在境内设立的分支、代表机构（经批准从事经营房地产业的企业除外）和在境内工作、学习时间超过一年的境外个人可以购买符合实际需要的自用、自住商品房，不得购买非自用、非自住商品房。在境内没有设立分支、代表机构的境外机构和在境内工作、学习时间一年以下的境外个人，不得购买商品住房。港澳台地区居民和华侨因生活需要，可在境内限购一定面积的自住商品房。

第六章  旧区改造

第三十一条  加快集中成片棚户区的改造。对集中成片的棚户区，城市人民政府要制定改造计划，因地制宜进行改造。棚户区改造要符合以下要求：困难住户的住房得到妥善解决；住房质量、小区环境、配套设施明显改善；困难家庭的负担控制在合理水平。

第三十二条  积极推进旧住宅区包括“城中村”的综合整治。对可整治的旧住宅区要力戒大拆大建。要以改善低收入家庭居住环境和保护历史文化街区为宗旨，遵循政府组织、居民参与的原则，积极进行房屋维修养护、配套设施完善、环境整治和建筑节能改造。

第七章  新市民住房

第三十三条  本法所称新市民是指没有取得城市户籍、但每年都在同一城市工作和居住6个月以上的城市常住人口。城市人民政府须多渠道改善进城务工的新市民居住条件。用工单位要向新市民提供符合基本卫生和安全条件的居住场所。新市民集中的开发区和工业园区，应按照集约用地的原则，集中建设向新市民出租的集体宿舍，但不得按商品住房出售。城中村改造时，要考虑新市民的居住需要，在符合城市规划和土地利用总体规划的前提下，集中建设向新市民出租的集体宿舍。有条件的地方，可比照经济适用住房建设的相关优惠政策，政府引导，市场运作，建设符合新市民特点的住房，以新市民可承受的合理租金或房价向新市民出租或出售。

第三十四条  连续在同一城镇工作满2年的新市民户，有权在所在城镇依法申请加入住宅合作社，并按照社员权利平等购买或租赁合作住房。连续在同一城镇工作满5年的新市民户，有权向所在城市依法申请购买经济适用住房。连续在同一城镇工作满10年的新市民户，有权向所在城镇依法申请廉租住房。各地人民政府住宅主管机关和住宅合作社须依法办理，不得歧视。

新市民户提出上述申请获得批准后，须在限期内放弃原来在农村的宅基地和承包土地，或者在限期内放弃原来在农村的宅基地和承包土地使用权之后，与所在村民委员会重新签订宅基地和承包土地使用权的租赁合同，并支付租金，办理相关公证手续后方可入住，否则不得入住，该项批准在限期届满后自动失效，获批住房由批准单位另行分配。

第三十五条  新市民户购买商品住房并取得城市户口定居后，须在限期内放弃原来在农村的宅基地和承包土地，或者在限期内放弃原来在农村的宅基地和承包土地使用权之后，与所在村民委员会重新签订宅基地和承包土地使用权的租赁合同，并支付租金，办理相关公证手续。在限期内拒绝办理相关手续和公证者，所在村民委员会有权依本法收回其宅基地使用权和土地承包权。

第八章  农民住房

第三十六条  尊重农民意愿，维护农民利益，增进农民福祉，扎扎实实规划和推进社会主义新农村住宅建设。突出和激发农民的自发、自助、协同的主体意识和创造性、积极性和主观能动性，调动农民的组织、策划、设计、实施、改进、维护能力。实现住宅建设改造与新农村的其它环节有机结合，统筹协调、互相促进。

第三十七条  加强农村基础设施建设和特困村庄整体搬迁及安居工程建设，加大财政扶持力度，拓宽资金来源渠道，整合各项涉农预算内资金、专项基金、社会捐助、政策性贷款，提高资金使用效率。

第三十八条  建立农村住宅性能评价体系，开展新农村住宅建设试点示范，推广住宅适用技术的系统集成。

第三十九条  开展农村集体土地房屋权属登记工作，保护房屋所有权人的合法权益。积极开展农房转让业务，对那些进城务工、经商，已在城镇安家落户，农村房产闲置不用的住宅，经本人和村民委员会依法办理相关手续后，经村民大会讨论通过，可以另行安排。支持农民依法以住宅抵押获取贷款，改变农民获得农业生产资金的方式，促进农民经济快速发展。

第九章  住宅规划制度

第四十条  国家和各省（自治区、直辖市）、市、县（区）国民经济和社会发展规划须单独编制住宅保障规划，重点解决城镇低收入家庭、新市民家庭的住房困难问题，逐步实现人人享有适当住房。

第四十一条  国务院和各级地方人民政府编制的住宅计划均须详细编列本法第二章至第八章各类住房的发展目标、政策措施、具体解决方案、责任人和问责条款，并向社会公布。必须使城乡公共住宅建设计划成为对于各级政府具有法律效力的硬约束，确保“十五年全国城乡全面小康住宅计划”目标的实现。

第四十二条  解决城乡住房困难家庭的住房问题，要坚持立足国情，满足基本住房需要；统筹规划，分步解决；政府主导，社会参与；统一政策，因地制宜；省（自治区、直辖市）级人民政府负总责，市、县（区）人民政府抓落实。

第十章  住宅登记制度

第四十三条  开展住宅普查工作，建立住宅、宅基地经常性的全民登记和住房交易申报制度，与房地产交易系统、央行信贷征信系统、公安户籍管理系统等信息系统密切协作，健全全体居民住房档案和收入档案，实行全国联网的住宅登记管理系统动态更新管理，对每个人和每户居民的住宅情况都要做到有案可查。

第四十四条  城市人民政府须开展年度低收入家庭住房状况调查，建立低收入住房困难家庭住房档案，规范廉租住房保障和经济适用住房供应的管理。

第四十五条  农村县、乡镇人民政府和村民委员会，须建立低保户、困难户、受灾户、公共工程拆迁户和特困村庄整体搬迁户住房档案并加强管理。

第十一章  住宅土地制度

第四十六条  社会主义土地国有的优越性决定了人民政府可以调控地价，进而可以调控公共住房的房价。各级人民政府必须负起责任，通过稳定和调控地价来稳定和调控经济适用住房和合作住房的房价，进而改善居民住房消费结构，平抑房价，使中、低收入家庭房价收入比达到符合国际惯例的合理水平，不得任凭市场调节普通民宅房价而无所作为。廉租住房、经济适用住房、合作住房和中低价位、中小套型普通商品住房建设用地，其年度供应总量不得低于住宅供应总量的70%。住宅的土地供应须实行优先供应包括廉租住房、经济适用住房和合作住房在内的公共住房的制度，公共住房建设用地年度计划没有落实之前，不得供应商品住房所需土地。

第四十七条  廉租住房和经济适用住房建设用地实行行政划拨方式供应。对廉租住房和经济适用住房建设用地，各地要切实保证供应。要根据住房建设规划，在土地供应计划中予以优先安排，并在申报年度用地指标时单独列出。确保廉租住房、经济适用住房建设用地落实到位，并合理确定区位布局。禁止以廉租住房、经济适用住房为名，以划拨方式取得土地后，又将土地挪用于商品住房开发。

第四十八条  合作住房的建设用地须在兼顾政府土地出让收入和住宅市场稳定的前提下，得到用地充分保障。采取“定地价、定建房标准，竞房价、竞建设方案，房价合理、方案优秀者得”的办法进行用地招标，使合作住房能够以合理的市场价格获得建设用地。

第四十九条  商品住房的建设用地须采取招标、拍卖、挂牌转让的方式进行。建立健全土地出让合同。

第五十条  严格约定开发建设项目的动工、预售等环节的时限。存在延期动工、预售、竣工和欠缴土地出让金等行为的开发建设单位，在未有效整改前一律不得进入土地一级市场；储备土地超出其开发能力的，不得继续参加土地招标和拍卖。

第五十一条  每宗地的开发建设时间原则上不得超过三年，确保供应的土地能够及时开发建设，形成廉租住房、经济适用住房和中低价位、中小套型普通商品住房的有效供应。对成片开发建设的土地，要统一规划，统一进行基础设施建设，按“净地”分块供应，以增加土地供应的宗数，防止大面积“圈占”土地现象的发生。同时，收回的闲置土地，要优先安排建设廉租住房、经济适用住房和合作住房。

第五十二条  各地住宅主管机关须将闲置土地监控、处置关口前移，实现对开发建设过程的全程监管。定期全面公开各开发建设单位拥有土地的数量和开发建设进度，方便社会监督住宅开发建设行为和政府各部门依法行政行为。

第五十三条  加强批后监管，对住宅开发用地逐宗检查，重点检查房地产开发企业履行土地使用合同的情况，对超出合同约定动工开发日期满一年未动工开发的，要依法征收土地闲置费；还将进一步加大对土地违法违规行为的查处力度，对违反合同等约定的，要严肃查处并按有关约定进行处罚。

第五十四条  住宅用地受让人依照国有建设用地使用权出让合同的约定付清全部土地出让价款后，方可申请办理土地登记，领取国有建设用地使用权证书。未按出让合同约定缴清全部土地出让价款的，不得发放国有建设用地使用权证书，也不得按出让价款缴纳比例分割发放国有建设用地使用权证书。

第五十五条  住宅国有土地的一次开发须由国有独资住宅开发企业、住宅合作社、建筑开发企业在同等条件下平等参与，采取招标方式进行。住宅国有土地一次开发项目验收合格并交付使用后，须在一个月内向社会公布项目决算报告，接受公众监督。

第五十六条  农民住宅的建设用地须尽量做到不推山、不填塘、不占田、不砍树、不搞不切实际的大拆大建。各省、自治区、直辖市人民政府须根据本地区实际情况，制定山区或丘陵地区、平原地区每户宅基地面积和住宅主楼基底面积标准，严格执行。

第十二章  住宅财政制度

第五十七条  地方各级人民政府要根据廉租住房和经济适用住房工作的年度计划，切实落实廉租住房和经济适用住房保障资金：地方财政要将廉租住房和经济适用住房保障资金纳入年度预算安排；住房公积金增值收益在提取贷款风险准备金和管理费用之后全部用于廉租住房和经济适用住房建设；土地出让净收益用于廉租住房和经济适用住房保障资金的比例不得低于30%，各地还可根据实际情况进一步适当提高比例；廉租住房和经济适用住房租金收入专项用于廉租住房和经济适用住房的维护和管理。对中西部财政困难地区，通过中央预算内投资补助和中央财政廉租住房和经济适用住房保障专项补助资金等方式给予支持。

第五十八条  廉租住房和经济适用住房建设、棚户区改造、旧住宅区整治一律免收城市基础设施配套费等各种行政事业性收费和政府性基金。

社会机构投资廉租住房或经济适用住房建设、棚户区改造、旧住宅区整治的，可同时给予相关的政策支持。

第五十九条  中央与地方人民政府均须设置住宅保障基金，住宅保障基金由国家财政、地方财政和各种赠与款等构成。住宅补贴经费由中央与地方住宅保障基金区别各地区不同情况，按比例负担。

第六十条  住宅补贴对象。在城市，对于有权申请廉租住房、经济适用住房的低收入户、公共工程拆迁户和有权加入住宅合作社的居民进行住宅补贴。在农村，加大财政扶持力度，拓宽资金来源渠道，整合各项涉农预算内资金、专项基金、社会捐助、政策性贷款，提高资金使用效率。对于低保户、困难户、受灾户、公共工程拆迁户和特困村庄整体搬迁户进行住宅补贴。补贴办法采取“人头补贴”和“砖头补贴”相结合的方式进行。

第六十一条  住宅补贴审查。实行住宅补贴申请者评估制度，建立健全申请、审核和公示办法，并向社会公布；要严格做好申请人家庭收入、住房状况的调查审核，完善轮候制度。要严肃纪律，坚决查处弄虚作假等违纪违规行为和有关责任人员，确保各项政策得以公开、公平、公正实施。

第六十二条  强化年度复核工作，实行“自愿申请、逐级审核；分类保障、分期轮候；封闭运行、公开透明；动态监管，打击违法”的原则，建立严格的准入退出机制和同类住房内部流转机制，不得空置和出租。

第十三章  住宅税收制度

第六十三条  对于经济适用住房和合作住房的开发建设，均须采取免收不动产销售营业税等契税给予支持。

社会各界向政府捐赠廉租住房房源的，执行公益性捐赠税收扣除的有关政策

第六十四条  对符合购买经济适用住房与合作住房的家庭实行减免个人所得税的退税政策。

为鼓励个人换购住房，对出售自有住房并拟在现住房出售后一年内按市场价重新购房的纳税人，其出售现住房所应缴纳的个人所得税，视其重新购房的价值可全部或部分予以免除。

第六十五条  对商品住房征收物业税，对廉租住房、经济适用住房、合作住房和普通农民住房免收物业税。

第六十六条  境内居民购买的第三套及以上商品住房，出售要征收不低于50％的资产增值税和不低于50％的个人所得税。

中华人民共和国境外居民和外国居民购买的商品住房，出售要征收不低于50％的资产增值税和不低于50％的个人所得税。

第十四章  住宅金融制度

第六十七条  建立不同层次的、有效率的住宅金融制度，降低住宅金融交易费用，抵御住宅金融风险，保护债权债务关系，最大限度地聚集社会闲散资金并转化为住宅建设和住宅消费资金，逐步完善和发展我国住宅金融制度。

第六十八条  充分发挥商业银行的住宅金融作用，不断健全和完善住宅金融市场，积极稳妥地扩大个人住房抵押贷款的总体规模，培育和发展住房抵押贷款二级市场，稳步扩大住房抵押贷款证券化试点工作，丰富和发展商业性住宅金融制度。

第六十九条  继续强制性地扩大住房公积金的覆盖范围，强化住房公积金的使用和管理工作。建立健全住房公积金的审计制度和内控制度，严厉打击挪用滥用的违法行为，确保安全和专款专用。改变资金闲置沉淀状况，简化审批环节和限制，提高住房公积金使用效率，重点帮助中、低收入家庭解决住房困难。

第七十条  改革现行住房公积金管理中心为政策性、专业性住宅金融机构，逐步实现住房公积金管理体制从“管理机构型”向“系统金融型”和“专业金融机构型”转变。创造条件将住房公积金的管理从政府住宅主管部门分离出来，成立中国公共住房银行，向中、低收入家庭和公共住房工程发放政府补贴的低息贷款。

第七十一条  支持发展住宅储蓄银行和住宅合作银行，积极鼓励民间住宅金融机构的创建，充分发挥住宅合作金融聚集民间资金的作用，以各种形式向其提供资金支持，扶持其发展，提高居民自己解决住房问题的能力。

第七十二条  建立政策性担保与商业性保险相结合的抵押保险机制。建立全国个人住房贷款担保体系，设立全国性住房贷款担保公司，为经济适用住房和合作住房购房人提供贷款担保。开办抵押信用保险和抵押寿险业务，为购房者提供更多的选择。

第七十三条  通过适度和有效的金融管制和宏观调控，以及恰当管制和调控方式的运用，推动住宅金融制度的稳步运行和健康发展。加强房地产信贷征信管理，充分利用央行信贷征信系统，加强贷前审查，有效防范房地产贷款风险。

第十五章  住宅行政制度

第七十四条  依法行政、政务公开、办事透明，是建立廉洁高效住宅行政制度的基本条件。为确保住宅开发建设审批验收的公开透明，必须使整个审批验收过程网络化，并将审批验收人员公示，接受社会监督。实行以下四项制度：第一，实行包括市、县（区）人民政府土地、规划、建设、城管、交通、民政、工商、税务、环保、节能、卫生等相关部门和自来水、电业、煤气、供暖等垄断性公用事业相关单位在内的集中办公审批验收制度；第二，实行审批验收人员集体负责制度，防止个别人滥用权力；第三，实行审批验收人员和审批验收进度网上公示制度，使整个审批验收过程网络化、公开化、透明化；第四，实行问责制度，强化对违法审批验收、推诿拖延行为的责任追究。

第七十五条  建立房价信息强制披露制度。提供正确的房价成本信息是维护住宅市场公平竞争和正常市场秩序的重要条件。廉租住房、经济适用住房、合作住房开发项目验收合格并交付使用后，须在一个月内向社会公布项目决算报告。国家物价局和各级地方物价局均须加强房价统计研究工作，建立一个权威性、科学性、专业性的测算体系，定期公布廉租住房、经济适用住房、合作住房和商品住房项目房价成本清单，向社会公众传达准确的房价信息，为宏观调控和财政、税收、金融监管及司法监察提供依据。

第十六章  法律责任

第七十六条  各级人民代表大会在每年开会期间，都要讨论和审议各级人民政府制定和执行城乡居民住宅建设的中长期计划和年度计划的情况。在人民代表大会闭会期间，各级人民代表大会常务委员会要对城乡居民住宅建设的中长期规划和年度计划的执行情况进行检查和监督，作为各级政府考核的重要标准，并对计划的制定、执行和考核情况承担法律责任。

第七十七条  落实工作责任。省级人民政府对本地区公共住房建设工作负总责，要对所属各市、县人民政府实行目标责任制管理，加强监督指导。有关工作情况，纳入对各级人民政府的政绩考核之中。公共住房建设是各级人民政府的重要责任。各级人民政府要把解决城乡居民住房困难摆上重要议事日程，加强领导，落实相应的管理工作机构和具体实施机构，切实抓好各项工作；要接受人民群众的监督，每年在向人民代表大会所作的《政府工作报告》中报告解决城乡居民家庭住房困难年度计划的完成情况。

第七十八条  国务院有关部门要按照各自职责，加强对各地工作的指导，抓好督促落实。建设部会同发展改革委、财政部、国土资源部等有关部门负责完善廉租住房管理办法和经济适用住房管理办法。民政部会同有关部门负责制定城市低收入家庭资格认定办法。财政部会同建设部、民政部等有关部门负责制定廉租住房保障专项补助资金的实施办法。发展改革委会同建设部负责制定中央预算内投资对中西部财政困难地区新建廉租住房项目的支持办法。财政部、税务总局负责研究制定廉租住房建设、经济适用住房、合作住房建设和住房租赁的税收支持政策。人民银行会同建设部、财政部等有关部门负责研究提出对廉租住房和经济适用住房、合作住房建设的金融支持意见。

第七十九条  加强监督检查。直辖市、计划单列市和省会（首府）城市要把解决城乡居民住房困难的发展规划和年度计划报建设部备案，其他城市报省（区、市）建设主管部门备案。建设部会同监察部等有关部门负责本意见执行情况的监督检查，对工作不落实、措施不到位的地区，要通报批评，限期整改，并追究有关领导责任。对在解决城乡居民家庭住房困难工作中以权谋私、玩忽职守的，要依法依规追究有关责任人的行政和法律责任。要加大住房需求调节力度，引导合理的住房消费，建立符合国情的住房建设和消费模式。

第八十条  制定土地、规划、建设、城管、交通、民政、工商、税务、环保、节能、卫生等相关部门和自来水、电业、煤气、供暖等垄断性公用事业相关单位的各项方针政策、管理制度和问责制度，促进住宅建设又好又快发展。

第八十一条  确保住房质量和使用功能。廉租住房和经济适用住房、合作住房建设、棚户区改造以及旧住宅区整治，要坚持经济、适用的原则。要提高规划设计水平，在较小的户型内实现基本的使用功能。要按照发展节能省地环保型住宅的要求，推广新材料、新技术、新工艺。要切实加强施工管理，确保施工质量。有关住房质量和使用功能等方面的要求，应在建设合同中予以明确。

第八十二条  加强市场监管，坚决整治住宅开发、交易、中介服务、物业管理及房屋拆迁中的违法违规行为，维护群众合法权益。

第八十三条  加强住宅价格的监管，抑制房价过快上涨，保持合理的价格水平，引导住宅市场健康发展。

第八十四条  对于违反一户一宅制度者和假冒低收入骗取优惠者，予以重罚。

第八十五条  对于违反国有土地使用权出让合同约定的开发建设项目动工、预售等环节时限的开发建设单位，每日计收合同地价总额千分之一的违约金。

第八十六条  建立健全具有操作性、切实可行的制度措施，坚决打击非法囤积土地、低价转让土地、转让闲置土地、非法囤积房源、哄抬炒作房价等违法行为。

第十七章  附则

第八十七条  对于本法第二章至第十六章所述内容，均须分别制定相应法律，经全国人大常委会通过后颁布实施。

第八十八条  本法自200×年×月×日起生效。

 

（起草人：李明，北京中产阳光房地产咨询有限公司，博客地址：二次房改论坛）

 

, o be less than 3 percent. In December of 2007, according to the central government, the affordable housing size must be controlled to 60 square meters, and they would be provided to low–income families only. The definition of “low–income families”, however, is not given yet. As shown in Figure 1, the newly–started area fell from 20.1% to 17.5% from 2004 to 2005, and the sales also declined.

3. THE METHODOLOGY

3.1 Assumptions

There are two markets offering commercial dwellings and public dwellings respectively. Consumers who are not poor enough to move into public dwellings only can buy homes in the private sector, while other households can consume the housing service in both two sectors.

To every consumer, there are two goods – housing and a nonhousing good which we use as a numeraire – and a continuum of measure one of consumers. The nonhousing good might be the leisure, or might be a composite good including leisure. The affordable housing is assumed to be an unobservable bundle of housing services per unit of time. This service offers the occupiers with numerous attributes such as the space, location and quantity. In addition, the price and income elasticities of housing demand are assumed to be unity, so the Cobb-Douglas function will be eligible.

Between commercial houses and affordable houses, we also assume that there is no significant difference in housing characteristics, such as the location, period of construction, housing size, family size, number of rooms and plot ratio. In fact, there is no special regulation on affordable houses except in housing size–the floor area was required to vary between 60 and 80 square meters in 1998, and is further restricted to about 60 square meters now. But these regulations did not lead to a big difference: the average housing size in cities of China ranged from 57 to 77 square meters between 1997 and 2006, very similar to the restricted areas. Moreover, in order to prevent the slum area and other social problems, China has tried to minimize the difference between affordable and commercial houses. For example, the big affordable housing community is avoided in many cities; the affordable housing projects are encouraged to locate near the streets and subway stations instead of suburban areas. In recent years, many cities such as Beijing, required the developers to build certain amount of affordable houses – say, 5 or 10 percent of the total units, in every commercial housing project. So generally speaking, the housing characteristics in the private sector and the public sector are similar.

3.2 Estimating Benefits

Figure 2 presents that the nonsubsidized consumer maximizes satisfaction by consuming R amount of housing at the point of T. The affordable housing participants, however, have higher level of utility curve S', with the budget line ZX' in Figure 2. Suppose that M' represents the occupiers’ income associated with ZX, and M' represents that with ZX'. Then the net benefits of occupiers, T_nb, which is the consumer surplus resulted from the affordable housing policy, is shown as follows:

                                 (1)

S

S’

Q

Z

W

X

R’

R

0

X’’

T

H

Figure 2: Choices of Participants and Non–Participants of Affordable Housing Program

However,  is hard to observe directly, so here we use the Cobb–Douglas utility function developed by Joseph Desalvo (1971). The occupier’s choice problem can be expressed as:

Maximize U(H, Q),                       (2)

subject to the budget constraint assumed as:

 (0＜α＜1)                         (3)

where P_q is the price of Q, which represents other goods, and P_h is the market housing price. 0＜α＜1 because affordable housing price is less than the market price.

The relevant Lagrangian is:

                (4)

where λ is the multiplier on the budget constraint. A positive λ suggests that increasing the expenditure on housing and other goods would increase the utility. The first–order conditions are:

Finally we get the results:

                                  (5)

                              (6)

Suppose the amount of housing occupied by the participant is R', and secure Q' amount of other goods with income M'. Then the utility function is as following:

                             (7)

In order to calculate the M'' that can bring the same utility level to non–participants as those to affordable housing residents with the income M', we substitute the function 6 and 7, with α＝1, into the utility function 1, and set S＝S':

           (8)

and M'' is solved as:

                      (9)

where P_hH' is the market price of affordable housing (P_m), and αP_hH' is the project price (P_p). As for β, the occupier’s current observed rent-income ratio cannot be used to estimate its value, because his/her housing expenditure is usually different from the normal level. But the market rent to income ratio is available as the value of β. So the net tenant benefits (T_nb) can be shown as follows:

                 (10)

If the values of P_m, P_p, and β were given, the net benefits would become the function of M'. Holding that P_m, P_p and β are constant in a certain period, the maximum benefits can be calculated by derivations:

So the net benefits will reach the highest point only when:

   (11)

3.2 Estimating Costs

The direct costs of affordable housing include the government’s revenue loss due to the exempt of land price (P_L), administrative fees (F) and taxes (T), plus the profit loss (PL) of developers due to the profit regulation. Thus, the estimated resource cost (C) of affordable housing becomes:

                       (12)

However, P_L and L are both unobservable, and the values of T and F are not published by the government. So it is hard to compute the costs based on the equation (12). But if the market value of affordable housing (P_m) – involving all the land price, fees, taxes and the average profits – can be estimated, the total costs of affordable dwellings will be considered as the difference between market price and project price (P_p). So the following equation will be employed:

                          (13)

where S is the construction amount of affordable houses. The value of C is the sunk cost, which was already incurred and cannot be recovered. But some of these resources still can make benefits in the future. For example, when the vacant houses are bought by deserving households, the benefits will be made. So to compare the benefits and costs, the current costs are also necessary to estimate. It contains the sunk costs of occupied affordable houses, plus the depreciation of vacant dwellings. Here we use the straight–line depreciation method, where the age of affordable housing assumed to be 70 years, and the residual value rate to be 5 percent.

3.3 Estimating the Housing Affordability

On the measurement of homeownership affordability, many Chinese papers, such as Zhang Qingyong (2007), Niu Yi (2007) and Luo Liqun (2006), used the approach of price-income ratio. The general function of it is shown in the below:

×100％                       (14)

where P_a is the average housing price; HS is the average housing size; AI is the average income. This method directly presents the relation between house price and income, but fails to take into account the interest rate, the fluctuations of which also change the affordability. In the United States, however, some organizations monitor the affordability of homeownership by considering price, income and interest rate. For example, the National Association of Realtors compute the monthly payments required to amortize the standard mortgage on the median house sold. Some Chinese and international papers, such as Xiang (2006) and Quigley (2004) used this index to measure the homeownership affordability, but this target is likely to ignore the down payments. Therefore, we compute the homeownership affordability in the aspects of both monthly payments and down payments, using the following functions:

                         (15)

where r₁ is deposit interest rate; r₂ is the mortgage interest rate; P is the average housing price. The homeownership affordability is measured by our new HAI index.

To homeowners, however, it is important to measure the user costs of occupied housing. In the perspective of an economist, the annual user cost rate includes not only the depreciation and maintenance expenditures (at the rate of dm), but also the real interest rate (i_r) and capital gains (at the rate of g). Thus, the user cost (UC) can be computed as follows:

                      (16)

To tenants, the burdens mainly consist of housing rents. The market rents in housing markets, however, are not available. So it is hard to estimate the costs of rental housing. But this issue will not weaken the research results to a large extent, because the homeownership rate in China had already reached 82 percent in 2006, and most tenants are also trying to buy houses according to the Chinese tradition. So the homeownership affordability is much more important for renters.

4. THE DATA

4.1 Data Description

The data was drawn from the China Statistical Yearbook from 1997 to 2006, published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The NBS reported the housing prices, sales areas, newly-started areas and so on in both private and public sectors. Household characteristics are also reported, such as housing area per capita and the average income. These data are shown in the Appendix A. The NBS also classified families into seven groups according to the incomes (see Appendix B for details).

In the data from the NBS, the average house price, sales area and newly-started area include both the commercial houses and affordable houses. However, these two kinds of housing are not transferred in the same market, because they have different consumers, price regulations and government supports. Therefore, the specific prices of commercial houses are computed based on the overall data, and are listed in Appendix A.

The website of People’s Bank of China reports the changes of interest rates. See Appendix C for details. These data are used in the estimations of housing affordability, housing rent, etc.

From other resources, we also collected some data which are crucial in this study: (1) according to the People’s Daily issued in Feb. 2^nd of 2007, the affordable housing program had benefited about 15 million people by the end of 2006; (2) the Ministry of Construction reported that between 1998 and 2003, 477 million square meters of affordable dwellings were completed, assisting over 6 million middle and low income families; (3) the Ministry of Construction reported that the homeownership rate in China had reached 82 percent in the year of 2006.

The data of affordable housing from 1994 to 1996 is still unavailable from the NBS. However, since the supply and sales of public shelters were very small at that time, the lack of these data will not influence the research results significantly.

4.2 Rent of the Commercial Housing

Although the NBS has never reported the rents in the private housing markets, their values still can be estimated using the income approach of the real estate appraisal:

                                (17)

where A is annual rent; r_c is the return rate in the housing market; and n is the use life of housing.

The return rate is equal to the risk–free interest rate plus the risk adjustment. But there is only a few studies focusing on the estimation of the return rate in the real estate industry. According to Zhan (2006), most real estate appraisers in China u, se the one–year mortgage interest rate as the value of r_c. So in this study, we also follow this approach. If the interest rate changed in one year, the weighted average will be used as the value of r_c this year.

The value of n for residential housing is assumed to be 70, for the urban land use right of residential real estate is valid within 70 years in China. Finally, the average housing rents in each year are estimated (shown by Figure 3). The commercial housing rent was low between the year of 1998 and 2003, mainly because of the stable housing price and the low interest rates. After 2003, however, the housing price rose fast, and the interest rate was also raised slightly, jointly resulting into the rapid rise of the housing rent.

Figure 3: The Estimations of the Average Rent of Commercial Housing

4.3 Market Price of Affordable Housing

By now, there is still no research trying to estimate the market value of China’s public dwellings. The Hedonic model seems to be en effective method in this work, and was employed to estimate shelters’ market price in some papers such as Blanc (2001). That is to say, the market price of a house has relationship with its characteristics, including the location, number of rooms, housing size, dwelling quality, house age, public safety, assess to rail, air quality, etc. If one or more variables change, the house’s market price will also rise or decline in response to the variances.

Theoretically, the two houses with the same characteristics will have the same value in a competitive market. According to the previous assumption, the overall characteristics of affordable houses are considered to be similar to those of private dwellings. In that case, the market value of each housing characteristic, such as number of rooms, should be constant no matter it is a commercial housing or an affordable housing. Therefore, in terms of the unit price, the market value of affordable shelters is equivalent to that of private dwellings. The latter is used as the market price of affordable houses.

4.4 Characteristics of Affordable Housing Occupiers

The characteristics of affordable housing buyers are still not available – we do not know the income, age, family size, or even the exact population of them. As a result, we have to made approximate estimations of the income and the number of public dwelling occupiers.

The incomes of occupiers are estimated based on the policy contents and the housing supply structure. According to the State Council’s notice – “Further Deepening the Urban Housing Reform and Accelerating the Housing Construction” issued in July 1998, the affordable housing were provided to all middle and low income families. Nevertheless, the policy was changed five years later, when another State Council’s Circular informed that the commercial housing should become the main proportion of housing supply. In September of 2006 and December of 2007, the central government emphasized twice that public housing only supported the low income households. In fact, as the Figure 4 shows, the proportion of affordable houses in total housing supply has never exceeded 25 percent. Therefore, the net tenant benefits will also be computed, given that only the bottom one or two quintile people were qualified participants.

As for the amount of occupiers, the available data shows that about 15 million people had moved into affordable dwellings by the end of 2006. But the exact number of new occupiers in each year is unavailable. To complete the cost-benefit analysis, we may simply assume that the number of new participants was constant every year from 1997 to 2006.

Figure 4: The Proportion of Affordable Housing in the Housing Supply, in Terms of Newly-started Area and Sales Area

5. ESTIMATION RESULTS AND COMMENTS

5.1 Benefits

The NBS classifies the population into seven groups by the disposable income per capita, from low to high (see Appendix B). Table 3 presents the estimations of net benefits for every occupier under different assumptions. The average benefits of every participant was ￥8,229, given that their average income was equal to that of the bottom 80 percent people, according to the State Council’s document issued in July 1998.

But it is more wised to made estimations based on the housing statistics data, instead of the policy. So as the Figure 4 indicates, we assume that affordable housing occupiers’ incomes were much lower – for example, approximate to those of the bottom quintile or 40 percent households. In that case, the net benefits are estimated to be ￥8,786 or ￥9,757, respectively. And the total net benefits from 1997 to 2006 are computed as ￥234,176.7 million or ￥271,020.4 million. Theoretically, the maximum benefits are ￥279,731.05.

Given the values of parameters of P_m, P_p, and β, the actual benefit function in each year are shown in the Appendix D. According to the function (11), the possible maximum benefits can be computed, presented in the Table 3, the associate income is shown in the Figure 5. As the project price declines, or the market price increases, the maximum benefits will rise. As the housing size or interest rate changes, the government can adjust the incomes of deserving households, so the maximum benefits will keep constant. So the policy maker plays an important role in the affordable housing program. For example, if the occupiers’ average income were regulated to ￥5,916 in 2006, the benefits would have reached ￥1,390 theoretically.

TABLE 3

Estimations of Annual Net Benefits per Capita, under Different Incomes

Figure 5: Incomes under the Maximum Benefits, Compared with those of Different Groups

5.2 Costs

Table 4 presents the sunk costs and current costs of affordable housing program. In these ten years, the annual sunk costs ranged from ￥14,095.62 million to ￥64,768.15 million, and the total reached ￥447,598.63 million. The sum of current costs were ￥328,685.21 million.

Therefore, the effects of affordable housing program are not very well, for the net benefits are less than the current costs, and even the maximum benefits do not exceed the costs.

There are some reasons for the low benefits and high costs based on our estimations. First, a lot of affordable houses are too large, decreasing the number of occupiers. Consider Beijing as an example, more than a half of public dwellings are larger than 90 square meters by 2002 (see Appendix E for details), while the average house size was less than 75 square meters. Such a phenomenon was due to the lack of building restrictions before the year of 2004. If the current costs are constant, as the house size declines, the number of participants increases, and the total benefits rise.

Second, the rapid rise of land price increases the costs of the affordable housing program, because both of the sunk costs and current costs mainly consist of the land value. The huge housing demand in recent 10 years increased the commercial housing price, the land price, and thus the market value of affordable housing. The real prices of allocated land are more and more high.

Finally, the current construction and sales mode of affordable housing are not efficient. The developers’ profits are regulated, discouraging their works. This might increase the project costs. Also, in this study we assume that the number of participants is constant every year, but in fact during the fast development stage there should be much more households moved into the affordable dwellings. So we are likely to underestimate the total benefits.

TABLE 4

The Costs of Affordable Housing Program

5.3 Housing Affordability and Affordable Housing Supply

Figure 6 shows that, when ignoring the capital gains, the user cost declined in the late 1990s and kept stable after 2000. However, if capital gains are involved, the user cost decreased dramatically after 2000, even lower than zero in most time. The rapid rise of housing price and the low interest rate are the causes of the extremely low or negative user costs. Therefore, homeowners’ cost is quite low, and more attention could be turned to the tenants.

Figure 7 presents the HAI affordability index of commercial housing and affordable housing, as well as the overall housing affordability. In the end of 1990s, the affordability rose because of the stable housing price and the decline of interest rate. Since the year of 2003, the affordability has decreased, mainly due to the rapid rise of commercial housing price and the slight inflation of interest rate. In 1997, it was the high interest rate that lowered the affordability, but it would not influence nonhousing families too much, because they could rent houses and wait for the low interest rate.

The housing problem in China is very serious according to the Figure 6. With the average income, a family was unable to afford the average commercial house. Especially in recent three years, such a family could only afford less than 60 percent of the monthly payment. Fortunately, the homeownership rate in Chinese cities is quite high – it reached 82 percent in 2006. But such a high rate mainly resulted from the welfare housing policy, which was abolished in 1999. So the low affordability in 2000s is worth the attention of policy makers.

The affordable housing program seems to be effective in the respect of affordability. Its unit price, on average, accounted for about 55 percent of the commercial housing. Therefore, the HAI index of the affordable dwelling was highly above that of the private dwelling. The price control policies, such as the waiver of land price and taxes, were effective.

However, the small supply size of affordable housing weakened the policy performance. Figure 4 shows that the supply of affordable housing declined dramatically after 2000. In recent three years, it accounted for less than 10 percent of the total housing supply. As a result, its influence on the whole housing problem, shown by the difference between commercial housing affordability and overall affordability, was still very small. The low housing affordability in China was not significantly changed by the affordable housing policy.

Therefore, it is important for China to raise the supply of public dwellings. But how many of them are enough? Ye Jianping (2005) compared the real estate market in different countries, using the Cluster Analysis and the data of GDP, homeownership rate, housing expenditure, income, urban population, real estate cycle, etc. His conclusion was that the current housing market in China was comparable to that of Japan and Germany in the period of 1970s – 1980s. From this point, the public housing in China should account for 10 percent – 20 percent of the total housing (see Appendix D for details). However, policy makers still need to understand net benefit functions, sunk costs, current costs, and housing affordability. They are presented in this paper. The household characteristics of nonhousing families and public shelter occupiers should be also taken into account.

Figure 6: User Cost of Housing Capital, 1997 – 2006

Figure 7: Housing Affordability Index, 1997 – 2006

6. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Based on the ordinal utility theory, we use the Cobb-Douglas function and budget constraint function, as well as the aggregated data from the NBS. This paper has made estimations of net occupier benefits, costs and housing affordability, from 1997 to 2006.

The net benefits ranged from ￥8,786 to ￥9,757 for every additional occupier under our assumptions. The net benefit functions of each year are also estimated. Our conclusions are different from some papers such as Sumka and Stegmant (1978), who held that the total benefits decrease with income. Instead, we conclude that the benefits will increase at first, and then decline when occupiers’ incomes keep rising and exceed the optimum point. Further, the maximum benefits of each year are also computed, given that house prices and rent-income ratio were constant every year.

The affordable housing program performed not very well in China, for the total benefits are less than the current costs. Moreover, Cobb-Douglas function is likely to overestimate the benefits, since Gallin (2006), Mayo (1980) and Quigley (1967) all concluded that the price and income elasticities of housing demand are slightly inelastic. However, since our study is likely to underestimate the total benefits by assuming that the number of new participants was constant every year, these two errors might be offset.

The price control of affordable housing is quite effective, for the affordability of these housing is very high. But in general, homeownership affordability is still low in cities of China, mainly due to the high price of commercial housing. Especially in recent three years, the family with the average income could only afford about 60 percent of the monthly payments. Although such a family was able to buy an average affordable home, the supply of these houses is very small, far from meeting the demand of low and middle income families.

Insufficient data on public shelters and occupiers’ characteristics leave some shortfalls in this study: (1) the exact benefits of occupiers are not estimated, and we only offer an estimation of its range instead; (2) the distribution of benefits cannot be studied due to the lack of individual data; (3) the research results may be weakened by the fact that some important variables, such as the commercial housing rent, are not actual data but estimated.

Finally, we offer some recommendations to improve China’s affordable housing program. First, investigate the household characteristics of public housing occupiers, such as the income, family size, home price and housing expenditure. These data will help a lot to the estimations of benefits function and thus contribute to the policy design. Second, set the participant regulation clearly and adjust it regularly. The parameters in the benefits function, such as the market price, project price and rent-income ratio, are usually fluctuating, so the monitoring system is necessary to improve the welfare efficiency. Third, increase the supply of affordable houses, since the welfare housing policy was abolished in 1999, and housing affordability is very low at present.

REFERENCES:

Braid Ralph. (1984). “The Effects of Government Housing Policies in a Vintage Filtering Model,” Journal of Urban Economics, 16, 272–296.

Blanc David. (2001). “The Effect of Public Social Housing on Households’ Consumption in France,” Journal of Housing Economics, 10, 429–455.

Caudill Steven, Ault Richard and Saba Richard. (1989). “Efficient Estimation of the Costs of Rent Controls,” Land Economics, 71, 154–159.

Deng Yongheng, Quigley John and Order Robert. (1996). “Mortgage Default and Low Downpayment Loans: The Costs of Public Subsidy,” Regional Science and Urban Economics, 26, 263–285.

DeSalvo Joseph. (1971). “A Methodology for Evaluating Housing Programs,” Journal of Regional Science, 11, 173–185.

DeSalvo Joseph. (1975). “Benefits and Costs of New York City’s Middle-Income Housing Program,” Journal of Political Economy, 83, 791–804.

Glaeser, Edward L. and Joseph Gyourko. (2002). “The Impact of Building Restrictions on Housing Affordability,” Economic Policy Review, June, 1–19.

Henderson John V. and Ioannides Y. (1986). “Tenure Choice and the Demand for Housing,” Economics, 53, 231–246.

Kraft John and Kraft Arthur. (1979). “Benefits and Costs of Low Rent Public Housing,” Journal of Regional Science, 19, 309–317.

Malpezzi Stephen. (1993). “Can New York and Los Angeles Learn from Kumasi and Bangalore? A Comparison of Costs and Benefits of Rent Controls,” Housing Policy Debate, 4(4).

Malpezzi Stephen. (1996). “Housing Prices, Externalities, and Regulation in U.S. Metropolitan Areas,” Journal of Housing Research, 7, 209–241.

Malpezzi Stephen. (2002). “Urban Regulation, the “New Economy,” and Housing Prices,” Housing Policy Debate, 13, 323–349.

Malpezzi Stephen. (1998). “Welfare Analysis of Rent Control with Side Payments: A Natural Experiment in Cario, Egypt,” Regional Science and Urban Economics, 28, 773–795.

Murray Michael. (1975). “The Distribution of Tenant Benefits in Public Housing,” Econometrica, 43, 771–788.

Mikkelson W., Partch M. and Shah K. (1997). “Ownership and Operating Performance of Companies that Go Public,” Journal of Financial Economics, 44, 281–307.

Morrall John F. and Olsen Edgar O. (1980). “The Cost-effectiveness of Leased Public Housing,” Policy Analysis, 6, 151–170.

Niu Yi. (2007). “Evaluating the Affordable Housing Program in China,” Finance & Trade Economics, 12, 127–134.

Olsen Edgar. (2000). “The Cost-Effectiveness of Alternative Methods of Delivering Housing Subsidies,” Virginia Economics Online Papers, 351.

Olsen Edgar and Barton David. (1983). “The Benefits and Costs of Public Housing in New York City,” Journal of Public Economics, 20, 299–332.

Quigley John M. and Raphael Steven. (2003). “Is Housing Unaffordable? Why Isn’t It More Affordable?” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 18, 191–214.

Quigley John M. (1979). “Housing Allowance and Demand Oriented Housing Subsidies,” Policy Studies Journal, 8, 98–106.

Quigley John M. and Raphael Steven. (2005). “Regulation and the High Cost of Housing in California” American Economic Review, 95, 323–328.

Sa-Adadu Jarjisu. (1984). “Alternative Estimates of Direct Tenant Benefit and Consumption Inefficiencies from the Section 8 New Construction Program,” Land Economics, 60, 189–201.

Sumka Howard and Stegmant Michael. (1978). “An Economic Analysis of Public Housing in Small Cities,” Journal of Regional Science, 18, 395–410.

Wang Chengqing. (2003). “The Role and the Trend of Affordable Housing Policy in China,” Finance & Trade Economics, 11, 70–74.

Xie Fuzhan, Li Peiyu and Liu Shiyu. (2000). “Housing Industry: Development

Strategy and Recommendations,” China Development Press, Beijing.

Ye Jianping, Zhang Yuesong, Wang Xuefa and Xu Yanlu. (2005). “The Comparative Research of Real Estate Industry Based on Fuzzy Clustering Analysis,” Journal of Shenyang Jianzhu University, 21, 170–172.

Yin Fanghua and Hu Bin. (1999). “The Future of The Affordable Housing Policy,” The Study of Finance and Economics, 11, 53–63.

APPENDIX A

APPENDIX B

Disposal Income Per Capita in Cities of China (RMB)

Source: Statistical Yearbook, 1997 – 2006.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

APPENDIX C

 

Deposit Rates (%)

Source: the website of People’s Bank of China, http://www.pbc.gov.cn/huobizhengce/huobizh

engcegongju/lilvzhengce/lilvshuiping/lishishuju.asp

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lending Rates (%)

Source: the website of People’s Bank of China, http://www.pbc.gov.cn/huobizhengce/huobizh

engcegongju/lilvzhengce/lilvshuiping/lishishuju.asp

APPENDIX D

 

The net benefit functions of each year:

1997:

1998:

1999:

2000:

2001:

2002:

2003:

2004:

2005:

2006:

APPENDIX E

Size of Affordable Housing in Beijing (square meters)

Source: Liu Hongyu, 1999, “The Report on Affordable Housing Program in Beijing.”

APPENDIX F

Housing Supply Structure in Some Countries(％)

Source: United Nations, 1997, “Annually Bulleting of Housing and Building Statistics for Europe and North America.”

 

 

 

附录：《中华人民共和国住宅法》立法建议稿及说明

《中华人民共和国住宅法》立法建议稿简要说明

本草案建议稿的立法原则和主要特点如下：

1．明确提出住宅权是每一个公民的基本人权。

2．明确提出保证低收入家庭和中产阶级家庭享有住宅社会保障和居住非营利公益性住房的权利，是必须长期坚持不可动摇的一项基本国策。

3．明确提出在城镇，建立和完善以非营利公益性住房为主的廉租住房、经济适用住房、合作住房和商品住房四类住房供应体系，对不同收入家庭实行不同的住房供应政策。与此相适应，必须建立和发展国有独资公共住房开发企业、住宅合作社、建筑开发商三支住宅建设开发队伍。

4．明确提出在农村，巩固和完善以农民自助为主、农民互助为辅的住房建设模式，建立健全农民住宅保障制度。

5．明确提出在全国城乡普遍实行一户一宅制度，对于包括廉租住房、经济适用住房、合作住房在内的公共住房和农民住房，强制实行一户一宅制度和准入退出制度。

6．明确提出设立国家住宅委员会和建设部住宅总局（专门机构）。

7．明确提出国家和各省（自治区、直辖市）、市、县（区）国民经济和社会发展规划须单独编制“城乡全面小康住宅规划”，重点解决城镇低收入家庭和新市民家庭的住房困难问题，逐步实现人人享有适当住房的目标，使全国居民住宅幸福指数达到人民满意的程度。

8．明确提出建立廉租住房制度、经济适用住房制度、合作住房制度、商品住房制度、旧区改造制度、新市民住房制度、农民住房制度、住宅计划制度、住宅登记制度、住宅土地制度、住宅财政制度、住宅税收制度、住宅金融制度、住宅行政制度、住宅法律责任制度。对于以上十五项制度均须分别制定相应法律，经全国人大常委会通过后颁布实施。

全文如下：

《中华人民共和国住宅法》立法建议稿

第一章  总  则

第一条  住宅权是每一个公民的基本人权。为确保公民居住权益，提高居住水平与公民住宅负担能力，改善住宅环境品质，使每一个家庭都能实现住有所居，特制定本法。

第二条  推行符合国情的住房建设模式和消费模式，保证低收入家庭和中产阶级家庭享有住宅社会保障和居住非营利公益性住房的权利，是必须长期坚持不可动摇的一项基本国策。

第三条  在城镇，建立和完善以非营利公益性住房为主的四类住房供应体系，对不同收入家庭实行不同的住房供应政策。低收入家庭租赁主要由人民政府提供的廉租住房，或购买主要由人民政府作为开发人直接提供的经济适用住房；中产阶级家庭购买或租赁主要由人民政府和住宅合作社提供的非营利公益性经济适用住房和合作住房；其他高收入家庭购买或租赁主要由建筑开发商提供的商品住房。与此相适应，须建立和发展国有独资公共住房开发企业、住宅合作社、建筑开发商三支住宅建设开发队伍。

第四条  在农村，巩固和完善以农民自助为主、农民互助为辅的住房建设模式，建立健全农民住宅保障制度。

第五条  在全国城乡普遍实行一户一宅制度，对于包括廉租住房、经济适用住房、合作住房在内的公共住房和农民住房，强制实行一户一宅制度和准入退出制度。

第六条  住宅决策协调机构，在中央一级为国家住宅委员会，负责制定发展城乡居民住宅的目标、方针、政策，协调解决工作实施中的重大问题。各级地方人民政府亦须设立住宅委员会，分别负责执行国家制定的发展城乡居民住房的目标、方针和政策，协调解决工作实施中的重大问题。

第七条  住宅管理机构，在中央一级为中华人民共和国建设部住宅总局（副部级），在各级地方人民政府为住宅办公室，分别负责国家和地方住宅建设的实施管理工作。

第八条  国务院和各级地方人民政府负责制定城乡居民住宅的中长期计划和年度计划，经本级人民代表大会讨论通过后予以实施。在优先处理的民生任务中，把人民的居住问题放在首位，并以包括廉租住房、经济适用住房、合作住房在内的公共住房建设和新农村住宅建设的人民满意度作为各级政府考核的重要标准。

第二章  廉租住房

第九条  城市廉租住房制度是解决低收入家庭住房困难的主要途径。全国所有城市都要对符合规定住房困难条件、申请廉租住房租赁补贴的城市低保家庭做到应保尽保；廉租住房制度保障范围要由城市最低收入住房困难家庭有计划地扩大到低收入住房困难家庭。

第十条  廉租住房保障对象的家庭收入标准和住房困难标准，由城市人民政府按照当地统计部门公布的家庭人均可支配收入和人均住房水平的一定比例，结合城市经济发展水平和住房价格水平确定。

廉租住房保障面积标准，由城市人民政府根据当地家庭平均住房水平、区别享受保障家庭人口状况及财政承受能力等因素统筹研究确定。新建廉租住房套型建筑面积控制在50平方米以内，主要在经济适用住房以及普通商品住房小区中配建，也可以考虑相对集中建设。

廉租住房保障对象的家庭收入标准、住房困难标准和区别家庭人口状况的保障面积标准实行动态管理，由城市人民政府每年向社会公布一次。

第十一条  城市廉租住房保障实行货币补贴和实物配租等方式相结合，通过发放租赁补贴，增强低收入家庭在市场上承租住房的能力。每平方米租赁补贴标准由城市人民政府根据当地经济发展水平、市场平均租金、保障对象的经济承受能力等因素确定。其中，对符合条件的城市低保家庭，可按当地的廉租住房保障面积标准和市场平均租金给予补贴。

第十二条  采取政府新建、收购、改建以及鼓励社会捐赠等方式增加廉租住房供应。市、县（区）人民政府须组建国有独资公共住房开发企业，加大廉租住房建设力度。委托住宅合作社和开发商建设的廉租住房，须在用地规划和土地出让条件中明确规定项目的非营利公益性，建成后由政府收回或回购。

第十三条  对申请廉租住房补贴和实物配租的家庭实行街道办事处（乡、镇）、县（区）、市三级审核、街道办事处（乡、镇）、县（区）两级公示制度。家庭成员已享受廉租住房政策或参与廉租住房申请的，不得重复申请。

第十四条  建设、收购的廉租住房产权登记在县（区）政府委托的单位名下，按照属地原则进行管理。建设、收购的廉租住房的产权人不得将房屋转让、抵押。

廉租住房只能用于申请家庭及其成员自住，不得转租、转借以及从事居住以外的任何活动。享受廉租住房保障的家庭，每年应按时向住房保障管理部门提供住房、收入、人口及资产变动情况，住房保障管理部门会同有关部门对其申报情况进行复核，并按照复核结果，调整租赁住房补贴金额或者实物配租面积。不及时、不如实申报家庭住房、收入、家庭人口及资产状况的，依据有关规定予以处理。

住房保障管理部门定期对享受廉租住房保障的家庭住房、收入、人口及资产状况进行复核，对家庭收入连续一年超出规定收入标准的，取消其廉租住房保障资格，停发租赁住房补贴，或者在合理期限内收回廉租住房。

第三章  经济适用住房

第十五条  经济适用住房是指政府提供优惠政策，限定建设标准、保障对象和销售价格，解决低收入家庭和中产阶级家庭住房困难的政策性住房。经济适用住房分为面向低收入家庭的经济适用房（简称低收经适房）和面向中产阶级的经济适用房（简称中产经适房）两种类型。对符合规定住房困难条件、申请购买经济适用住房的城市中、低收入家庭须做到应保尽保。

第十六条  经济适用住房保障对象的家庭收入标准和住房标准，由城市人民政府按照当地统计部门公布的家庭人均可支配收入和人均住房水平的一定比例，结合城市经济发展水平和住房价格水平确定。

经济适用住房保障面积标准，由城市人民政府根据当地家庭平均住房水平、区别享受保障家庭人口状况及财政承受能力等因素统筹研究确定，其中，低收经适房套型建筑面积控制在65平方米以内；中产经适房套型建筑面积控制在90平方米以内。

经济适用住房保障对象的家庭收入标准、住房标准和区别家庭人口状况的保障面积标准实行动态管理，由城市人民政府每年向社会公布一次。

第十七条  市、县（区）人民政府每年都要按照计划建设一定规模的经济适用住房。房价较高、住房结构性矛盾突出的城市，要增加经济适用住房供应。经济适用住房须主要由国有独资公共住房开发企业和住宅合作社开发建设。委托开发商建设的经济适用住房，须在用地规划和土地出让条件中明确规定项目的非营利公益性，建成后由政府收回或回购。

第十八条  经济适用住房工作坚持政府主导，遵循以下原则：以区为主、全市统筹；自愿申请、逐级审核；公开透明、分期轮候；封闭运行、动态监管。

对申请购买经济适用住房的家庭实行街道办事处（乡、镇）、县（区）、市三级审核、街道办事处（乡、镇）、县（区）两级公示制度。对符合标准的，纳入经济适用住房供应对象范围。家庭成员已享受经济适用住房政策或参与经济适用住房申请的，不得重复申请。过去享受过福利分房或购买过经济适用住房的家庭不得再购买经济适用住房。

第十九条  经济适用住房属于政策性公共住房，购房人仅拥有有限产权。个人全资购买的经济适用住房，产权性质为私人所有，产别为“经济适用住房私有房产”。

第二十条  经济适用住房只能用于申请家庭及其成员自住，不得转租、转借以及从事居住以外的任何活动。已经购买了经济适用住房的家庭又购买其他住房的，或购房人因各种原因确需转让经济适用住房的，原经济适用住房由政府按规定回购，不得直接上市交易；或按照经济适用住房转让办法在经济适用住房交易中心挂牌向符合购买条件的家庭转让。经济适用住房转让后，五年内不得重新申请。上述规定应在经济适用住房购房合同中予以明确。回购的经济适用住房，继续向符合条件的低收入家庭出售。

第四章  合作住房

第二十一条  合作住房是属于经济适用住房范围内的政策性保障住房，是住宅合作社通过社员集资合作建造的住房。住宅合作社是由城市居民为改善自身住房条件而自愿参加，不以营利为目的公益性合作经济组织，具有社团法人资格。

住宅合作社的主要任务是：发展社员，组织本社社员合作建造住宅；负责社内房屋的管理、维修和服务；培育社员互助合作意识；向当地人民政府有关部门反映社员的意见和要求；兴办社员居住生活服务的其他事业。

第二十二条  国家鼓励和扶持社会型住宅合作社的发展。住宅合作社的设立实行准则登记制，具有民事行为能力的公民、企业法人、社团法人和群众团体，均有权发起设立本行政区域内城镇居民参加的社会型住宅合作社。住宅合作社的设立须面向社会征集单位社员和个人社员，来自社会各界的非发起单位的社员，须占社员总数的30％以上。

住宅合作社的设立须经市、县（区）人民政府住宅主管部门进行资质审查，由市、县（区）人民政府民政主管部门依法登记注册。

住宅合作社的变更、合并、分立与终止均须依照国家有关法律法规进行。

第二十三条  住宅合作社实行独立核算、民主管理、自我服务和第三者监管制度。社员大会和社员代表大会是住宅合作社的权力机关，由全体社员组成。理事会是代表和执行机关；监事会是监督机关，均由社员大会和社员代表大会选举产生。

住宅合作社的资金实行签约银行监管制度。住宅合作社的财务机构由签约会计师事务所派出，并由签约会计师事务所派出代表担任财务总监。财务实行公开化、透明化管理，定期向社员公布工程进度、财务收支和工程费用情况。住宅合作社理事会成员必须有法律顾问和房地产专家作为独立理事参加，监事会成员必须有银行监管代表和签约审计师事务所代表作为独立监事参加。

第二十四条  合作住房属于政策性公共住房，保障对象必须是无房户和住房困难户，且在城市中有固定工作、购房自住的常住人口。购房人仅拥有有限产权。个人全资购入的合作住房，产权性质为私人所有，产别为“合作住房私有房产”。

第二十五条  合作住房的保障方式主要是政府在土地、税收、金融等方面提供支持；住宅合作社在非营利公益性的原则下向社员提供成本价普通商品住房。同时，创造条件推行合作住房的租赁和部分产权制度。

合作住房的套型建筑面积须控制在90平方米以内。

第二十六条  合作住房遵循自愿申请、逐级审核；公开透明、分期轮候；封闭运行、动态监管的审核销售原则。对申请购买合作住房的家庭实行街道办事处（乡、镇）、县（区）、市三级审核，街道办事处（乡、镇）、县（区）两级公示制度。对符合标准的，纳入合作住房保障对象范围。家庭成员已享受合作住房政策或参与合作住房申请的，不得重复申请。过去享受过福利分房或购买过经济适用住房的家庭不得再购买合作住房。

第二十七条  非本地城镇常住人口，不得加入住宅合作社，不得以任何名义购买合作住房。购买合作住房只能用于申请家庭及其成员自住，不得上市转让、出租或出借以及从事居住以外的任何活动。已经购买了合作住房的家庭又购买其他住房的，或购房人因各种原因确需转让合作住房的，由住宅合作社按照规定进行回购，或按照合作住房转让办法在合作住房交易中心挂牌向符合购买合作住房条件的家庭转让。合作住房转让后，五年内不得重新申请。上述规定应在合作住房购房合同中予以明确。住宅合作社回购的合作住房，可向符合条件的住宅合作社社员家庭出售。

第五章  商品住房

第二十八条  房地产开发企业是以营利为目的，从事房地产开发和经营的企业，简称开发商。商品住房是开发商以营利为目的建设的居民住宅和公寓。开发商须兼顾社会利益，重点发展中低价位、中小套型普通商品住房，增加住房有效供应。城市新审批、新开工的住房建设，套型建筑面积90平方米以下住房面积所占比重，必须达到开发建设总面积的70%以上。

积极发展住房租赁市场，鼓励建筑开发企业开发建设中小户型住房面向社会出租。

第二十九条  境内居民购买的第一套商品住房，有权享受国家的低首付、优惠利率商业贷款政策和公积金贷款政策。境内居民购买的第二套及以上商品住房，不得享受国家的低首付、优惠利率商业贷款政策和公积金贷款政策。

对购买首套自住房且套型建筑面积在90平方米以下的，贷款首付款比例(包括本外币贷款，下同)不得低于20%；对购买首套自住房且套型建筑面积在90平方米以上的，贷款首付款比例不得低于30%；对已利用贷款购买住房、又申请购买第二套(含)以上住房的，贷款首付款比例不得低于40%，贷款利率不得低于中国人民银行公布的同期同档次基准利率的1.1倍，而且贷款首付款比例和利率水平应随套数增加而大幅度提高，具体提高幅度由商业银行根据贷款风险管理相关原则自主确定，但借款人偿还住房贷款的月支出不得高于其月收入的50%。

第三十条  中华人民共和国境外居民和外国居民，在境内工作或合法居留满一年，只可以购买一套自住商品住房，但不能享受国家的低首付、优惠利率商业贷款政策。

境外机构在境内设立的分支、代表机构（经批准从事经营房地产业的企业除外）和在境内工作、学习时间超过一年的境外个人可以购买符合实际需要的自用、自住商品房，不得购买非自用、非自住商品房。在境内没有设立分支、代表机构的境外机构和在境内工作、学习时间一年以下的境外个人，不得购买商品住房。港澳台地区居民和华侨因生活需要，可在境内限购一定面积的自住商品房。

第六章  旧区改造

第三十一条  加快集中成片棚户区的改造。对集中成片的棚户区，城市人民政府要制定改造计划，因地制宜进行改造。棚户区改造要符合以下要求：困难住户的住房得到妥善解决；住房质量、小区环境、配套设施明显改善；困难家庭的负担控制在合理水平。

第三十二条  积极推进旧住宅区包括“城中村”的综合整治。对可整治的旧住宅区要力戒大拆大建。要以改善低收入家庭居住环境和保护历史文化街区为宗旨，遵循政府组织、居民参与的原则，积极进行房屋维修养护、配套设施完善、环境整治和建筑节能改造。

第七章  新市民住房

第三十三条  本法所称新市民是指没有取得城市户籍、但每年都在同一城市工作和居住6个月以上的城市常住人口。城市人民政府须多渠道改善进城务工的新市民居住条件。用工单位要向新市民提供符合基本卫生和安全条件的居住场所。新市民集中的开发区和工业园区，应按照集约用地的原则，集中建设向新市民出租的集体宿舍，但不得按商品住房出售。城中村改造时，要考虑新市民的居住需要，在符合城市规划和土地利用总体规划的前提下，集中建设向新市民出租的集体宿舍。有条件的地方，可比照经济适用住房建设的相关优惠政策，政府引导，市场运作，建设符合新市民特点的住房，以新市民可承受的合理租金或房价向新市民出租或出售。

第三十四条  连续在同一城镇工作满2年的新市民户，有权在所在城镇依法申请加入住宅合作社，并按照社员权利平等购买或租赁合作住房。连续在同一城镇工作满5年的新市民户，有权向所在城市依法申请购买经济适用住房。连续在同一城镇工作满10年的新市民户，有权向所在城镇依法申请廉租住房。各地人民政府住宅主管机关和住宅合作社须依法办理，不得歧视。

新市民户提出上述申请获得批准后，须在限期内放弃原来在农村的宅基地和承包土地，或者在限期内放弃原来在农村的宅基地和承包土地使用权之后，与所在村民委员会重新签订宅基地和承包土地使用权的租赁合同，并支付租金，办理相关公证手续后方可入住，否则不得入住，该项批准在限期届满后自动失效，获批住房由批准单位另行分配。

第三十五条  新市民户购买商品住房并取得城市户口定居后，须在限期内放弃原来在农村的宅基地和承包土地，或者在限期内放弃原来在农村的宅基地和承包土地使用权之后，与所在村民委员会重新签订宅基地和承包土地使用权的租赁合同，并支付租金，办理相关公证手续。在限期内拒绝办理相关手续和公证者，所在村民委员会有权依本法收回其宅基地使用权和土地承包权。

第八章  农民住房

第三十六条  尊重农民意愿，维护农民利益，增进农民福祉，扎扎实实规划和推进社会主义新农村住宅建设。突出和激发农民的自发、自助、协同的主体意识和创造性、积极性和主观能动性，调动农民的组织、策划、设计、实施、改进、维护能力。实现住宅建设改造与新农村的其它环节有机结合，统筹协调、互相促进。

第三十七条  加强农村基础设施建设和特困村庄整体搬迁及安居工程建设，加大财政扶持力度，拓宽资金来源渠道，整合各项涉农预算内资金、专项基金、社会捐助、政策性贷款，提高资金使用效率。

第三十八条  建立农村住宅性能评价体系，开展新农村住宅建设试点示范，推广住宅适用技术的系统集成。

第三十九条  开展农村集体土地房屋权属登记工作，保护房屋所有权人的合法权益。积极开展农房转让业务，对那些进城务工、经商，已在城镇安家落户，农村房产闲置不用的住宅，经本人和村民委员会依法办理相关手续后，经村民大会讨论通过，可以另行安排。支持农民依法以住宅抵押获取贷款，改变农民获得农业生产资金的方式，促进农民经济快速发展。

第九章  住宅规划制度

第四十条  国家和各省（自治区、直辖市）、市、县（区）国民经济和社会发展规划须单独编制住宅保障规划，重点解决城镇低收入家庭、新市民家庭的住房困难问题，逐步实现人人享有适当住房。

第四十一条  国务院和各级地方人民政府编制的住宅计划均须详细编列本法第二章至第八章各类住房的发展目标、政策措施、具体解决方案、责任人和问责条款，并向社会公布。必须使城乡公共住宅建设计划成为对于各级政府具有法律效力的硬约束，确保“十五年全国城乡全面小康住宅计划”目标的实现。

第四十二条  解决城乡住房困难家庭的住房问题，要坚持立足国情，满足基本住房需要；统筹规划，分步解决；政府主导，社会参与；统一政策，因地制宜；省（自治区、直辖市）级人民政府负总责，市、县（区）人民政府抓落实。

第十章  住宅登记制度

第四十三条  开展住宅普查工作，建立住宅、宅基地经常性的全民登记和住房交易申报制度，与房地产交易系统、央行信贷征信系统、公安户籍管理系统等信息系统密切协作，健全全体居民住房档案和收入档案，实行全国联网的住宅登记管理系统动态更新管理，对每个人和每户居民的住宅情况都要做到有案可查。

第四十四条  城市人民政府须开展年度低收入家庭住房状况调查，建立低收入住房困难家庭住房档案，规范廉租住房保障和经济适用住房供应的管理。

第四十五条  农村县、乡镇人民政府和村民委员会，须建立低保户、困难户、受灾户、公共工程拆迁户和特困村庄整体搬迁户住房档案并加强管理。

第十一章  住宅土地制度

第四十六条  社会主义土地国有的优越性决定了人民政府可以调控地价，进而可以调控公共住房的房价。各级人民政府必须负起责任，通过稳定和调控地价来稳定和调控经济适用住房和合作住房的房价，进而改善居民住房消费结构，平抑房价，使中、低收入家庭房价收入比达到符合国际惯例的合理水平，不得任凭市场调节普通民宅房价而无所作为。廉租住房、经济适用住房、合作住房和中低价位、中小套型普通商品住房建设用地，其年度供应总量不得低于住宅供应总量的70%。住宅的土地供应须实行优先供应包括廉租住房、经济适用住房和合作住房在内的公共住房的制度，公共住房建设用地年度计划没有落实之前，不得供应商品住房所需土地。

第四十七条  廉租住房和经济适用住房建设用地实行行政划拨方式供应。对廉租住房和经济适用住房建设用地，各地要切实保证供应。要根据住房建设规划，在土地供应计划中予以优先安排，并在申报年度用地指标时单独列出。确保廉租住房、经济适用住房建设用地落实到位，并合理确定区位布局。禁止以廉租住房、经济适用住房为名，以划拨方式取得土地后，又将土地挪用于商品住房开发。

第四十八条  合作住房的建设用地须在兼顾政府土地出让收入和住宅市场稳定的前提下，得到用地充分保障。采取“定地价、定建房标准，竞房价、竞建设方案，房价合理、方案优秀者得”的办法进行用地招标，使合作住房能够以合理的市场价格获得建设用地。

第四十九条  商品住房的建设用地须采取招标、拍卖、挂牌转让的方式进行。建立健全土地出让合同。

第五十条  严格约定开发建设项目的动工、预售等环节的时限。存在延期动工、预售、竣工和欠缴土地出让金等行为的开发建设单位，在未有效整改前一律不得进入土地一级市场；储备土地超出其开发能力的，不得继续参加土地招标和拍卖。

第五十一条  每宗地的开发建设时间原则上不得超过三年，确保供应的土地能够及时开发建设，形成廉租住房、经济适用住房和中低价位、中小套型普通商品住房的有效供应。对成片开发建设的土地，要统一规划，统一进行基础设施建设，按“净地”分块供应，以增加土地供应的宗数，防止大面积“圈占”土地现象的发生。同时，收回的闲置土地，要优先安排建设廉租住房、经济适用住房和合作住房。

第五十二条  各地住宅主管机关须将闲置土地监控、处置关口前移，实现对开发建设过程的全程监管。定期全面公开各开发建设单位拥有土地的数量和开发建设进度，方便社会监督住宅开发建设行为和政府各部门依法行政行为。

第五十三条  加强批后监管，对住宅开发用地逐宗检查，重点检查房地产开发企业履行土地使用合同的情况，对超出合同约定动工开发日期满一年未动工开发的，要依法征收土地闲置费；还将进一步加大对土地违法违规行为的查处力度，对违反合同等约定的，要严肃查处并按有关约定进行处罚。

第五十四条  住宅用地受让人依照国有建设用地使用权出让合同的约定付清全部土地出让价款后，方可申请办理土地登记，领取国有建设用地使用权证书。未按出让合同约定缴清全部土地出让价款的，不得发放国有建设用地使用权证书，也不得按出让价款缴纳比例分割发放国有建设用地使用权证书。

第五十五条  住宅国有土地的一次开发须由国有独资住宅开发企业、住宅合作社、建筑开发企业在同等条件下平等参与，采取招标方式进行。住宅国有土地一次开发项目验收合格并交付使用后，须在一个月内向社会公布项目决算报告，接受公众监督。

第五十六条  农民住宅的建设用地须尽量做到不推山、不填塘、不占田、不砍树、不搞不切实际的大拆大建。各省、自治区、直辖市人民政府须根据本地区实际情况，制定山区或丘陵地区、平原地区每户宅基地面积和住宅主楼基底面积标准，严格执行。

第十二章  住宅财政制度

第五十七条  地方各级人民政府要根据廉租住房和经济适用住房工作的年度计划，切实落实廉租住房和经济适用住房保障资金：地方财政要将廉租住房和经济适用住房保障资金纳入年度预算安排；住房公积金增值收益在提取贷款风险准备金和管理费用之后全部用于廉租住房和经济适用住房建设；土地出让净收益用于廉租住房和经济适用住房保障资金的比例不得低于30%，各地还可根据实际情况进一步适当提高比例；廉租住房和经济适用住房租金收入专项用于廉租住房和经济适用住房的维护和管理。对中西部财政困难地区，通过中央预算内投资补助和中央财政廉租住房和经济适用住房保障专项补助资金等方式给予支持。

第五十八条  廉租住房和经济适用住房建设、棚户区改造、旧住宅区整治一律免收城市基础设施配套费等各种行政事业性收费和政府性基金。

社会机构投资廉租住房或经济适用住房建设、棚户区改造、旧住宅区整治的，可同时给予相关的政策支持。

第五十九条  中央与地方人民政府均须设置住宅保障基金，住宅保障基金由国家财政、地方财政和各种赠与款等构成。住宅补贴经费由中央与地方住宅保障基金区别各地区不同情况，按比例负担。

第六十条  住宅补贴对象。在城市，对于有权申请廉租住房、经济适用住房的低收入户、公共工程拆迁户和有权加入住宅合作社的居民进行住宅补贴。在农村，加大财政扶持力度，拓宽资金来源渠道，整合各项涉农预算内资金、专项基金、社会捐助、政策性贷款，提高资金使用效率。对于低保户、困难户、受灾户、公共工程拆迁户和特困村庄整体搬迁户进行住宅补贴。补贴办法采取“人头补贴”和“砖头补贴”相结合的方式进行。

第六十一条  住宅补贴审查。实行住宅补贴申请者评估制度，建立健全申请、审核和公示办法，并向社会公布；要严格做好申请人家庭收入、住房状况的调查审核，完善轮候制度。要严肃纪律，坚决查处弄虚作假等违纪违规行为和有关责任人员，确保各项政策得以公开、公平、公正实施。

第六十二条  强化年度复核工作，实行“自愿申请、逐级审核；分类保障、分期轮候；封闭运行、公开透明；动态监管，打击违法”的原则，建立严格的准入退出机制和同类住房内部流转机制，不得空置和出租。

第十三章  住宅税收制度

第六十三条  对于经济适用住房和合作住房的开发建设，均须采取免收不动产销售营业税等契税给予支持。

社会各界向政府捐赠廉租住房房源的，执行公益性捐赠税收扣除的有关政策

第六十四条  对符合购买经济适用住房与合作住房的家庭实行减免个人所得税的退税政策。

为鼓励个人换购住房，对出售自有住房并拟在现住房出售后一年内按市场价重新购房的纳税人，其出售现住房所应缴纳的个人所得税，视其重新购房的价值可全部或部分予以免除。

第六十五条  对商品住房征收物业税，对廉租住房、经济适用住房、合作住房和普通农民住房免收物业税。

第六十六条  境内居民购买的第三套及以上商品住房，出售要征收不低于50％的资产增值税和不低于50％的个人所得税。

中华人民共和国境外居民和外国居民购买的商品住房，出售要征收不低于50％的资产增值税和不低于50％的个人所得税。

第十四章  住宅金融制度

第六十七条  建立不同层次的、有效率的住宅金融制度，降低住宅金融交易费用，抵御住宅金融风险，保护债权债务关系，最大限度地聚集社会闲散资金并转化为住宅建设和住宅消费资金，逐步完善和发展我国住宅金融制度。

第六十八条  充分发挥商业银行的住宅金融作用，不断健全和完善住宅金融市场，积极稳妥地扩大个人住房抵押贷款的总体规模，培育和发展住房抵押贷款二级市场，稳步扩大住房抵押贷款证券化试点工作，丰富和发展商业性住宅金融制度。

第六十九条  继续强制性地扩大住房公积金的覆盖范围，强化住房公积金的使用和管理工作。建立健全住房公积金的审计制度和内控制度，严厉打击挪用滥用的违法行为，确保安全和专款专用。改变资金闲置沉淀状况，简化审批环节和限制，提高住房公积金使用效率，重点帮助中、低收入家庭解决住房困难。

第七十条  改革现行住房公积金管理中心为政策性、专业性住宅金融机构，逐步实现住房公积金管理体制从“管理机构型”向“系统金融型”和“专业金融机构型”转变。创造条件将住房公积金的管理从政府住宅主管部门分离出来，成立中国公共住房银行，向中、低收入家庭和公共住房工程发放政府补贴的低息贷款。

第七十一条  支持发展住宅储蓄银行和住宅合作银行，积极鼓励民间住宅金融机构的创建，充分发挥住宅合作金融聚集民间资金的作用，以各种形式向其提供资金支持，扶持其发展，提高居民自己解决住房问题的能力。

第七十二条  建立政策性担保与商业性保险相结合的抵押保险机制。建立全国个人住房贷款担保体系，设立全国性住房贷款担保公司，为经济适用住房和合作住房购房人提供贷款担保。开办抵押信用保险和抵押寿险业务，为购房者提供更多的选择。

第七十三条  通过适度和有效的金融管制和宏观调控，以及恰当管制和调控方式的运用，推动住宅金融制度的稳步运行和健康发展。加强房地产信贷征信管理，充分利用央行信贷征信系统，加强贷前审查，有效防范房地产贷款风险。

第十五章  住宅行政制度

第七十四条  依法行政、政务公开、办事透明，是建立廉洁高效住宅行政制度的基本条件。为确保住宅开发建设审批验收的公开透明，必须使整个审批验收过程网络化，并将审批验收人员公示，接受社会监督。实行以下四项制度：第一，实行包括市、县（区）人民政府土地、规划、建设、城管、交通、民政、工商、税务、环保、节能、卫生等相关部门和自来水、电业、煤气、供暖等垄断性公用事业相关单位在内的集中办公审批验收制度；第二，实行审批验收人员集体负责制度，防止个别人滥用权力；第三，实行审批验收人员和审批验收进度网上公示制度，使整个审批验收过程网络化、公开化、透明化；第四，实行问责制度，强化对违法审批验收、推诿拖延行为的责任追究。

第七十五条  建立房价信息强制披露制度。提供正确的房价成本信息是维护住宅市场公平竞争和正常市场秩序的重要条件。廉租住房、经济适用住房、合作住房开发项目验收合格并交付使用后，须在一个月内向社会公布项目决算报告。国家物价局和各级地方物价局均须加强房价统计研究工作，建立一个权威性、科学性、专业性的测算体系，定期公布廉租住房、经济适用住房、合作住房和商品住房项目房价成本清单，向社会公众传达准确的房价信息，为宏观调控和财政、税收、金融监管及司法监察提供依据。

第十六章  法律责任

第七十六条  各级人民代表大会在每年开会期间，都要讨论和审议各级人民政府制定和执行城乡居民住宅建设的中长期计划和年度计划的情况。在人民代表大会闭会期间，各级人民代表大会常务委员会要对城乡居民住宅建设的中长期规划和年度计划的执行情况进行检查和监督，作为各级政府考核的重要标准，并对计划的制定、执行和考核情况承担法律责任。

第七十七条  落实工作责任。省级人民政府对本地区公共住房建设工作负总责，要对所属各市、县人民政府实行目标责任制管理，加强监督指导。有关工作情况，纳入对各级人民政府的政绩考核之中。公共住房建设是各级人民政府的重要责任。各级人民政府要把解决城乡居民住房困难摆上重要议事日程，加强领导，落实相应的管理工作机构和具体实施机构，切实抓好各项工作；要接受人民群众的监督，每年在向人民代表大会所作的《政府工作报告》中报告解决城乡居民家庭住房困难年度计划的完成情况。

第七十八条  国务院有关部门要按照各自职责，加强对各地工作的指导，抓好督促落实。建设部会同发展改革委、财政部、国土资源部等有关部门负责完善廉租住房管理办法和经济适用住房管理办法。民政部会同有关部门负责制定城市低收入家庭资格认定办法。财政部会同建设部、民政部等有关部门负责制定廉租住房保障专项补助资金的实施办法。发展改革委会同建设部负责制定中央预算内投资对中西部财政困难地区新建廉租住房项目的支持办法。财政部、税务总局负责研究制定廉租住房建设、经济适用住房、合作住房建设和住房租赁的税收支持政策。人民银行会同建设部、财政部等有关部门负责研究提出对廉租住房和经济适用住房、合作住房建设的金融支持意见。

第七十九条  加强监督检查。直辖市、计划单列市和省会（首府）城市要把解决城乡居民住房困难的发展规划和年度计划报建设部备案，其他城市报省（区、市）建设主管部门备案。建设部会同监察部等有关部门负责本意见执行情况的监督检查，对工作不落实、措施不到位的地区，要通报批评，限期整改，并追究有关领导责任。对在解决城乡居民家庭住房困难工作中以权谋私、玩忽职守的，要依法依规追究有关责任人的行政和法律责任。要加大住房需求调节力度，引导合理的住房消费，建立符合国情的住房建设和消费模式。

第八十条  制定土地、规划、建设、城管、交通、民政、工商、税务、环保、节能、卫生等相关部门和自来水、电业、煤气、供暖等垄断性公用事业相关单位的各项方针政策、管理制度和问责制度，促进住宅建设又好又快发展。

第八十一条  确保住房质量和使用功能。廉租住房和经济适用住房、合作住房建设、棚户区改造以及旧住宅区整治，要坚持经济、适用的原则。要提高规划设计水平，在较小的户型内实现基本的使用功能。要按照发展节能省地环保型住宅的要求，推广新材料、新技术、新工艺。要切实加强施工管理，确保施工质量。有关住房质量和使用功能等方面的要求，应在建设合同中予以明确。

第八十二条  加强市场监管，坚决整治住宅开发、交易、中介服务、物业管理及房屋拆迁中的违法违规行为，维护群众合法权益。

第八十三条  加强住宅价格的监管，抑制房价过快上涨，保持合理的价格水平，引导住宅市场健康发展。

第八十四条  对于违反一户一宅制度者和假冒低收入骗取优惠者，予以重罚。

第八十五条  对于违反国有土地使用权出让合同约定的开发建设项目动工、预售等环节时限的开发建设单位，每日计收合同地价总额千分之一的违约金。

第八十六条  建立健全具有操作性、切实可行的制度措施，坚决打击非法囤积土地、低价转让土地、转让闲置土地、非法囤积房源、哄抬炒作房价等违法行为。

第十七章  附则

第八十七条  对于本法第二章至第十六章所述内容，均须分别制定相应法律，经全国人大常委会通过后颁布实施。

第八十八条  本法自200×年×月×日起生效。

 

（起草人：李明，北京中产阳光房地产咨询有限公司，博客地址：二次房改论坛）