A Feasible System of Infill Supply for Urban Housing in China

Abstract

In recent years, Chinese house production has reached the vast scale of ten million units each year, many of which are being commercialized. China has gradually developed a unique form of two-stage unit realization where the unit owner, the long-term lessee, endeavors to procure fitting out. This causes various risks for the stakeholders, such as the authority, the developer, the infill supplier and especially the owner. The authors have investigated the state-of-the-art of the fitting out practice for multi-family housing in Chinese metropolises, and structured the risks imposed on the stakeholders. Having found a similarity in the supply pattern with single-family detached housing rather than multi-family housing in other countries, a viable means to avoid the risks was sought. Proposed in this paper is a system which combines incremental inspection with escrow service, a type which has already been introduced to the custom-built single family housing market in Japan.