Demand for affordable housing in China has increased rapidly due to urbanization processes and rural-to-urban migration – and home prices have risen rapidly as well. In general, municipal governments are responsible for building and managing low- and middle-income rental housing, and these units are often produced through public-private partnerships (PPPs) in which the government provides public land to developers for no cost, along with reduced development fees paid to local governments.
However, rental housing construction still faces some major obstacles, including lacking finances for rental housing construction and the importance of land sales and leases on municipal revenue – revenue that is lost on current PPP models. And the actions taken to remedy these issues, like allocating less land to public housing and more to market-rate, along with locating public housing on the peripheries of cities, only complicates the provision of housing further. And while most people own their housing, expanding the rental sector in a sustainable and accessible way proves an essential opportunity to ensuring access to affordable housing.
Source:
Peppercorn, I.G. & Taffin, C. (2013) Rental Housing : Lessons from International Experience and Policies for Emerging Markets. Washington, DC: World Bank.
Link: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/13117