Commercial Housing Affordability in Post-welfare Housing Era in Beijing, 1999-2009

China has experienced a substantial economy growth with a rapid housing price increase which affected its housing affordability. Beijing's high commercial housing price is widely concerned since the launch of welfare housing reform in 1998. The paper analyses: what the high commercial housing price has led to during the period from 1999 to 2009 by the adoption of price-to-income ratio and housing affordability index. The findings indicate that the price-to-income ratio fluctuates between 6.7 and 15 and housing affordability index is between 143 and 71 during the period. The results provide an insight into housing affordability in Beijing and the trend suggests that the municipal government's housing provision policies are hard to solve the housing affordability problem in the short run. The reasons for the high commercial housing price are examined and possible policies to increase the housing affordability are discussed in the paper.