One of Beijing’s most famous districts for top schools rolled out a new admission policy to crack down on housing speculation, the latest move by local authorities to keep the bubble-prone property market in check.
Parents will no longer be guaranteed to get their children enrolled in sought-after elementary schools in Beijing’s Haidian district simply by purchasing properties there.
As of next year, schools in the northwestern district won’t enroll a student directly based on the proximity of the resident’s location to a school, if his or her so-called hukou -- household registration -- is moved to the area, according to a statement released last Friday. Instead, admission will be coordinated across the entire district, it said.
Cities like Beijing and Shanghai have long grappled with frenzied buying of homes in areas near the best schools because parents must own property there for their children to attend. That inflates values of so-called “school district houses,” which are often small, run down and over-priced.
To cool house price gains, Beijing’s property watchdog conducted a sweeping inspection of real estate brokers to determine whether they had illegal activities including hyping school district properties. It punished 26 of them.