The government of Guangzhou, capital of South China's Guangdong Province, will offer rental tenants the same rights as housing owners to educational access, tax rebates and monetary support, a move that experts said will improve the rental market as well as curb surging home prices.

Under the new regulation, tenants who hold a local hukou (household registration) or a skilled worker certificate or fulfill the same qualifications in a point-based ranking system could enroll their children in elementary and middle schools near their rented housing, said a statement posted on the government's website on Monday.

The local government also raised the amount of money that tenants could withdraw each month to pay rent from their contributions to the housing provident fund by 10 percentage points from 30 percent of the previous level, said the statement.

Guangzhou also vowed to guarantee the safety of rental tenants through enhancing oversight of furniture, housing environments and fire safety, and it will regulate the tenancies and rent levels to reduce tenants' burden, according to the statement.

"The policy plays a key role in helping boost the local rental market, which is undeveloped and lacks regulation, as well as helping cool the overheated property market, especially in areas near schools," Hui Jianqiang, research director with real estate information provider Beijing Zhongfangyanxie Technology Service, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

In China, home ownership is linked to school registration rights as the location of a student's home determines which school they can attend, but that is only the case for the children of homeowners rather than tenants.

Guangzhou's new policy will help lower the school's threshold for tenants' children, enhance their quality of life and reduce their living costs, Hui said.

Experts noted that Guangzhou has taken a lead to launch reform of the rental market, which will set an example, and cities like Beijing and Shanghai may follow suit.

More efforts are required to put the policy into practice, said Yan Yuejin, research director at Shanghai-based E-house China R&D Institute.

"For instance, as education resources in first-tier cities are quite limited, rent levels of housing around good schools are likely to surge and market speculation will emerge. Thus, relevant rules to regulate the sector should be further discussed and rolled out," Yan told the Global Times on Wednesday.

He said that local leasing companies are expected to work with education departments to help carry out the policy.

Pan Xuelin, a 20-something white-collar worker without a local hukou who rented an apartment in Tianhe district in Guangzhou, hailed the new policy, saying that "some incentives, especially equal education access, really benefit tenants."

"But what worries me is that it will also drive up rents. That will make it harder for people who cannot afford to purchase housing in Guangzhou," He told the Global Times on Wednesday.

New home prices in Guangzhou climbed 0.5 percent month-on-month in June, according to data released by National Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday. The growth rate slowed in the past three months after the city announced housing purchase regulations in March.

(Source: globaltimes.cn)