Trials start to improve house vacancy stats
- Source: Global Times
- [09:22 September 08 2010]
- Comments
Flats in a residential compound begin to light up as dusk falls one evening last month. Photo: IC
By Zhou Mi
The Shanghai Investigation Team of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has rolled out a pilot survey to assess the number of vacant residential properties in selected communities as part of a national drive to improve the reliability of vacant home statistics.
"We have already started to select a few communities as samples, and we will follow the methodologies NBS designed, which have not yet been finalized," an officer from the Shanghai Investigation Team, who asked not to be named, told the Global Times Tuesday.
He added that no public statistics will come out from the current round of research, as it is a trial to identify ways for NBS to conduct a nationwide survey of vacancy rates.
Ma Jiantang, head of NBS, said in a press conference earlier that the bureau will choose some cities to execute small-scale pilot surveys of vacancy rates, Xinhua News Agency reported on Monday.
Preparations to trial the survey in Beijing are also underway, Yu Xiuqin, spokesperson of Beijing Municipal Statistics Bureau, was reported as saying on Monday.
Some owners of vacant properties in Shanghai are worried that the government will punish them if they are identified, Shanghai Youth Daily reported Tuesday. They have speculated that the survey will rely on figures from utility meters, and have been considering asking property management companies to turn on lights and water faucets in order to deceive it, the report said.
Vacant residential property has become a hot issue, with many potential house buyers claiming the practice pushes up prices and shuts them out of the market.
There have been calls for the government to release accurate statistics following a rumor in March that the national electricity provider, State Grid, determined there are 65.4 million idle residential units in China, based on the number of properties that had not used any electricity for a six-month period. The rumor was later denied by State Grid.
Sheng Yunlai, a spokesperson for NBS, said in a press conference in August that conducting surveys using current methods in China are hampered by difficulties in "concept definition and methodology adoption."
The lack of official, regularly-updated vacancy rates sparked a grass roots movement in Shanghai and other cities in August, which called on participants to assess the number of vacant properties in their neighborhoods by counting how many were unlit in the evening after dark.
"The practice of official vacancy rate surveys has been well established in the European Union and the US, which started releasing quarterly figures from 1965," Chen Jie, a professor at the Real Estate Research Center of Fudan University, told the Global Times Tuesday. "They distinguish between rental properties and properties occupied by owners, and establish samples by type, then collect data by telephone interview and visits.
"The survey is not that complex, and faces no technical obstacles. All it needs is time to establish a statistics network, in which the housing authorities, police and statistic departments cooperate," he added.
