Effects on BJ housing from 2008 Olympics

[cdn_in_bj]

This topic was touched upon in a different thread, and seeing the following article "Beijing hotels ramp up rates for Games-paper" made me think about it more:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/2008/2007-07/25/content_5442887.htm

So obviously some hotels anticipate that demand will exceed supply, and have started hiking their rates. If this is indeed the case, then this demand should also drive short-term apartment rentals.

I wonder when will we start noticing the effects of this in the rental market? And in what way? Will there be a sharp rise in rental rates as we near 8/08? Will we start seeing non-standard lease periods, ie - 11 months for leases signed in 9/07, 10 months for leases signed in 10/07, etc.? Or will landlords (both existing as well as new) overanticipate and cause an oversupply of housing for the month of 8/08?

[roddy]

I predict chaos. Given the way bandwagons work in China (掉渣饼, anyone?) if there is scope for profit, everyone with an apartment to rent will charge in and try to make it. Authorities are bound to try and regulate to some extent, but how successful they'll be is anyone's guess. this predicts half a million extra heads needing beds per day. That's a hell of a lot of people, even for Beijing.

[adrianlondon]

I hope it all comes back to normal immediately the olympics finish as that's when I plan to go back to Beijing for a while.

In fact, I hope there are lots of empty apartments and hotel rooms so prices are even lower than before. Here's hoping.

[roddy]

The athletes and media villages are earmarked for use as housing (plans for after-games use of facilities is part of the bidding process for the games) so that might have some effect on keeping things cheap post-games. For my money the Olympics will be an upward blip on graphs heading upwards anyway, and it's going to be tricky to untangle what's the Olympics and what is just Beijing.

[Senzhi]

Well, if you have a search on previous Olympic Games, the general trend is that things go really crazy on the market well before and during the Games. They tend to go back to normal again slowly after the Games.

I don't see any reason why Beijing would be any different.