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Shanghai’s home rental market suffers as owners struggle to replace tenants who fled town and displaced workers during lockdown crisis

  • Rentals in some of the 16 districts in Shanghai fell by more than 10 per cent in June after the city ended a lockdown
  • Recovery will be uneven as it takes time to replace tenants in a short time, says a Ziroom property agent in Shanghai

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People, wearing a face mask following the coronavirus outbreak, walk past a barrier on a street in Shanghai on July 1. Photo: Reuters
David Ren
Shanghai’s home rental market is taking some knocks as owners struggled to find new tenants to replace the horde of professionals who skipped town before the lockdown, and factory workers who lost their jobs when businesses cratered. The recovery may be uneven after a round of price cuts.
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Rents in some of the 16 districts in China’s main financial hub fell by more than a tenth, even after businesses and daily life in the city of 25 million people returned to normal when the local government declared a victory over the Omicron outbreak and ended the shutdown on June 1.

The highest month-on-month decline was seen in the northern Jiading district, where prices tumbled 10.6 per cent to 69.30 yuan (US$10.35 yuan) per square metre, according to Creprice, an online housing data platform. In southwestern Jinshan district, rentals plunged 8.1 per cent 30.18 yuan. That compares with a 0.7 per cent decline on average across the whole city.

The lockdown was expected to shave 2.5 to 3 per cent of China’s national output, according to one projection. To repair Shanghai’s US$637 billion economy, the municipal government unveiled a 50-point plan, including 300 billion yuan of tax breaks and incentives to businesses to fend off job cuts. Landlords were asked to give their retail tenants rent holidays.

01:16

Shanghai erupts in celebration as two-month Covid-19 lockdown comes to an end

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Louis Liu, who came to Shanghai last June for work, just renewed his contract with a local long-term rental platform at a 13 per cent discount.

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