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In the market for a luxury home? Don't look for one in Beijing. At the beginning of the month, the capital city's construction committee made illegal the sale of any home priced at higher than US$6,560 per square meter. Anyone there willing to put down a pile of cash for a three-story villa with a garden and koi pond will have to wait until the municipal government once again changes its policy on how real estate is bought and sold.
In late October, Beijing started once again tightening its control over residential home sales, the continuation of a near-four-year campaign to use policy measures to slow housing prices nationwide. The city allows residents to own no more than two homes and last month the government threatened to seize flats from those in excess, with the hope of dampening speculation.
After nearly seven months without a big policy reaction to rapid year-on-year growth in housing prices, governments in Xiamen, Nanchang and Nanjing on Tuesday followed Beijing's lead, raising minimum down payments for second homes.
Only the speculation on new government housing controls can match that in China's property sector. Average year-on-year residential prices recorded in...