China's Housing Shortage Research

Housing is a necessity for human survival and development. To meet the basic housing needs of the residents is a necessary condition for the simple reproduction of labors, a basis to achieve self-development and self-satisfaction, and an important factor related to social stability and economic development. So proper solutions of the housing problem is a prerequisite for the existence and development of modern society.Although China has come out of eras of over a I I shortage described in Theory of Economic Shortage, the great abundance of goods and services does not mean that shortfalls have disappeared from people's lives, and shortage of housing is a good example. As one of the most important and basic necessities of life, shortage of housing needs more attention from researchers and policy makers. Rapid rise in housing prices, poor living experience, widening gap of housing ownership between residents and low-income residents'incapacity to meet the housing needs show us clearly the existences of housing shortage. In simple estimations, if the current growth rate of housing construction in China maintains, gap of housing supply and demand of urban residents of our country will be accumulated to a very high level in the middle of 21st century under the background of rapid progress in China's urbanization and great growth of urban population. Then economic and social issues caused by shortage of housing will be very prominent and out of hand.Therefore, the growth rate of housing construction in China must be increased and the development path of China's housing market must be optimized. We must make a number of fundamental issues about the development of the housing clear, which include that what is the fundamental purpose of the development of housing market, and how to trade off the housing industry's supporting role in economic development and basic supplying role in improvement of residents'living if we can not make the two roles effective in the same time, and how to define the role of government in development of the housing market, and how to improve the support of financial system to the housing market, etc. In the basis of these principles, we shou I d focus on the promot i on of the development of housing market policy system, which is composed of land policy, fiscal and tax policy, legislation policy and financial policy. In the framework of the policy system, we can consider the supply and demand of housing separately and take targeted measures to make sure the shortage issue of housing properly resolved.