SHENZHEN may raise pre-owned home appraisals next month in its latest attempt to stabilize the red-hot property market, several days after it rolled out a spate of measures, including higher down payments and purchase restrictions.

    The latest move, announced by the city’s Center for Assessment and Development of Real Estate on Saturday, the first working day after the seven-day National Day holiday ended, will drive up the transaction taxes of pre-owned homes.

    The center said in a notice on its official website that the appraisals for residential apartments will be updated Nov. 8 based on the fluctuation of the city’s real estate market.

    The appraisal is adjusted every half a year in Shenzhen and has been hiked every time in the past by an average of 10-20 percent.

    In the latest adjustment in April, the appraisal was raised by 10 to 20 percent. In some popular areas where home prices were relatively high, the assessed prices went up by 60 to 80 percent.

    The hikes had driven up taxes and dues paid by homeowners and purchasers when pre-owned homes were traded, leading to the rapid decline in the trading volume of pre-owned homes in Shenzhen, according to the center.

    Shenzhen on Tuesday imposed tough home purchasing restrictions to tame wild home prices on the night of Oct. 4, becoming the 10th major city around China to clamp down on property speculation, following cities like Beijing, Tianjin, Hefei and Suzhou that have all seen home prices skyrocketing during the past year.

    First-time homebuyers who have no mortgage records in Shenzhen will continue to pay a minimum down payment of 30 percent. But the down payment for those who have mortgage records but no homes will be raised to no less than 50 percent and that for second-home purchases will be no less than 70 percent, the municipal government said in a circular.

    Meanwhile, purchase restrictions were upgraded to rein in speculation in the city, where prices of some homes have more than doubled since 2015.

    People without a local hukou (household registration certificate) are allowed to buy only one house if they have paid five or more years of personal income tax or social insurance. The earlier minimum requirement was three years.

    For those who have hukou certificates, families continue to be banned from buying a third home and a single adult is banned from buying a second home.

    The municipal government also said it will increase land supply in the coming years. It aims to make 800 hectares of land available for housing development in the next five years to 2020. In some land sales, developers need to have plans that include the construction of low-cost houses for rent or sale to win the auctions.

    Also it ordered property developers to build more small-scale homes: 70 percent of the total floor area of a real estate project must be apartments smaller than 90 square meters.

    According to the official data released by Shenzhen’s urban planning, land and resources commission, 508 new homes were sold across the city from Oct. 1 to 7, a record number for the same period in the city’s history. Of the total, 180 transactions happened Oct. 4.

    During last year’s National Day holidays, Shenzhen reported 227 new-home transactions while the figures were 163 in 2013 and 139 in 2014. (Zhang Yang)

    (Related story on P9)