Study On Housing Affordability Of Urban Residents In Wuhan

The reform of housing system improves the living quality of urban residents. It brings about the development of real estate industry and the national economy. It also brings about some problems. The very important point is that the proportion of housing expenditure is expanding and the housing affordability is weakening gradually. To a certain extent, housing issues will impact the stability of our society. Measuring housing affordability accurately is the premise to establish the housing security policy. It also has leading value for the participants in the market.This paper studies the housing affordability of urban residents in Wuhan on the new houses. First of all, it discusses the income and the housing consumption of urban residents in Wuhan and the current situation of housing market in Wuhan. Then, it analyzes on the housing affordability indicators and selects three indicators for urban residents in Wuhan. House price to income ratio is good for contrast across the space and time. The indicator of Wuhan is higher than a lot of the other1.5tier cities in China. There is a big gap in different income groups. The lowest three districts of the housing affordability are Jianghan, Jiangan, Qiaokou. Residual-income approach can help us to identify which groups need housing subsidies. The highest income group can cover70,90,120and140square meters houses. The second high group can cover70,90and120square meters houses. The third high group can cover70and90square meters houses. The remaining groups can hardly find a suitable house in the new residential market. Mismatch approach is used for finding out if the housing supply structure is reasonable. We should increase the supply of small type and low-cost houses in Wuhan to meet the needs of the last four groups. According to102square meters of residential standards, we need the houses that each square metre costs no more than509.8yuan,1055.67yuan,1445.13yuan and2171.35yuan. According to the price in2009, we need the houses of which the area is no more than9.87square meters,20.45square meters,28square meters and42.06square meters. Finally, the paper puts forward some suggestions to improve the housing affordability of urban residents in Wuhan, such as increasing the income of residents, freezing the house price, providing financial support, establishing and improving the housing security system.