Real estate developers in Shenzhen have been banned from using marketing techniques like pre-sale and the issurance of VIP memberships when releasing new apartments into the market as part of the latest official effort to slow down the surging housing prices in the city, the Daily Sunshine reported Saturday.

The new measures, jointly released by Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Land Resources and Housing Management and the pricing bureau Friday, require developers to begin selling new apartments within 10 days of obtaining official permission to do so, the newspaper said.

Developers are not permitted to sell apartments before receiving official permission, nor are they allowed to issue VIP memberships to home buyers who put down a deposit as a way of giving them priority in purchasing apartments, according to the measures.

Property prices, which have been registered with the bureau of land resources and housing management, must been posted in a clearly visible place. Besides, a standardized sale contract has also been introduced for property transactions, the newspaper said. The contract can be downloaded from the Web site www.srea.gov.cn.

This is the latest move by the city to regulate the housing market. Previously, the government had urged residents to report irregularities by property agents in the buying and selling of property.

It is believed that irregularities by property developers and agents, like the stockpiling of new apartments, misleading advertisements and price rigging, have been partly to blame for the price surge.

Housing prices in Shenzhen continued to climb in the first half of the year, with the price increases the highest among 70 major Chinese cities. And in turn, the continuing price rises have fueled market speculation.

The bureau of land resources and housing management is also working on a new price evaluation system to prevent home sellers from evading taxes by falsely declaring low prices.

Many sellers sign two contracts with buyers, with the one submitted to the bureau stating a much lower price in order to pay lower amounts in taxes.

After the price evaluation system is put into operation, the sale of an apartment may be taxed according to the independently valued market price of the house if the contract is thought to understate the price.

(Shenzhen Daily July 16, 2007)