Study On Housing Affordability Of Urban Residents In China

In recent years, housing problem has become a focus problem that urban residents pay attention to, at the same time ,it also has become an important task that government have to face and concern about. In order to solve housing problems for urban residents, improve the structure of real estate in China, and advance the healthy and continuous development of real estate,we must have a clear understanding and a scientific judgement at China's urban residents'housing affordability firstly.In this paper,I make China's urban residents'housing affordability be the research subject,employing qualitative and quantitative methods, and adopting the datas for the year 1991-2007,to do three aspects'systematical analysis on China's urban residents'housing affordability,which are historical change trend analysis,social difference analysis and zone difference analysis. Then combined with the development of the current situation and problems of China's domestic housing market, on how to improve urban residents'housing ffordability, and to solve urban residents'housing problem , this paper issues related policies and recommendations.Firstly, this paper discusses the current situation and problems of China's domestic housing market, then the methods to measure housing affordability were compared, and select the price to income ratio (PIR) and housing affordability index (HAI) as the two indexes to do quantitative analysis on China's urban residents's housing affordability. And the analysis shows that: (a) On the whole, 1991-2007, China's urban residents'housing affordability appeared to be weakened after the former strengthening trend. Since 2004, China's urban residents'housing affordability has weakened , and the burden on housing consumption has increased; (b) the social difference of urban residents'housing affordability was greater, and the housing affordability gap between the highest-income group and the lowest income class was in great disparity , and appered an expansile trend; (c) the zone difference of every city's urban residents'housing affordability was notable. Most of eastern cities'housing affordability was weakended, but most of central and western cities'housing affordability was better. Finally, combined with the development status and problems of the domestic housing market as well as the results of quantitative analysis, this paper gives some policies and recommendations , such as strenthen the controlling of the housing market,perfect the housing supply system;Improve the Housing safeguard system,protect the residents'basic housing right,and so on.