Housing market expected to cool under strict purchasing limits (4)

He added that property developers and house buyers are waiting for the annual national congress sessions next March to see whether the government will continue to raise lending rates and introduce property taxes in other cities.
Revenue from land sales is a major source of local government income in a number of Chinese cities. But soaring housing prices have become a key source of public complaints in recent years, prompting the government to cut reliance on land sale revenue.
Zhu Zhongyi, vice director of the China Real Estate Association, said that a properly levied property tax could solve the problem in the long run, though the introduction of trial property taxes in Chongqing and Shanghai have had very limited impact.
"It can't bring big changes at present, but it does send the right signal," Zhu said.