China’s housing ministry on Saturday said it would blacklist property agents, and in serious cases, shut down real-estate agencies that spread rumors about government policy on the property market.
State media on Friday said that police had detained seven property agents in Shanghai for spreading rumors of plans for a new government regulation that sparked a rash of divorces and a rush to buy new homes.
The agents were alleged to have spread rumors online that a new regulation would require higher minimum down payments and mortgage interest rates for home buyers who have been divorced for less than a year, the Xinhua state news agency said.
Migrants in Shanghai who do not hold Shanghai household registration must be married to make home purchases and they are only allowed to buy one house per family.
In a short statement, the housing ministry said it approved of the actions of the Shanghai police, as such rumors “stir up chaos in market order and have a malign effect on society.”
Realtors who spread such rumors will be blacklisted, and if the circumstances are particularly serious, real-estate agents will be closed down, the ministry added.
The Shanghai rumors caused a buying frenzy in the financial hub, although the government has denied it was planning any changes to the city’s home purchasing rules, Xinhua said.
Shanghai has widely been regarded as one of the most restrictive Chinese cities in terms of conditions placed on home buyers.
It adopted further regulations earlier this year, including increasing the down payment ratio for second-time home buyers.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last