Outside Beijing's Fourth Ring Road, what's the highest price a 66-square-meter house can fetch? The answer is close to 6 million yuan.

　　Real estate tycoon and 'prediction king' Ren Zhiqiang recently said that within a few years, housing prices near Beijing's Fourth Ring Road will reach 100,000 yuan per square meter. In fact, reporters have found that some areas along the Fourth Ring Road are already approaching 100,000 yuan per square meter. The reason for such high prices is three words: school district housing.

　　An 11-square-meter bungalow for 2.3 million yuan

　　From the perspective of real estate marketing, school district housing generally refers to properties within the enrollment zone of key primary schools.

　　According to relevant education policies in Beijing, primary school enrollment is based on nearby zoning, with each primary school only admitting students from specific surrounding areas. For many key primary schools, only students whose household registration is in the designated area can attend. Buying a house and registering the household in that area has become the choice of many parents.

　　In recent years, prices of school district housing near key primary schools in Beijing have been rising steadily.

　　In the first half of this year, a school district property in Huaqing Jiayuan, Wudaokou, outside the North Fourth Ring Road, was listed at a price as high as 100,000 yuan per square meter, and was jokingly called the 'center of the universe'.

　　A real estate agent told reporters that school district housing in the Huaqing Jiayuan area comes with enrollment quotas for a key primary school—Zhongguancun No. 2 Primary School. Most are small units, ranging from 37 to 60 square meters, with prices mostly between 60,000 and 80,000 yuan per square meter, and some even exceeding 90,000 yuan per square meter.

　　However, in the same Huaqing Jiayuan complex, a non-school-district apartment of 200 square meters is priced at only 47,500 yuan per square meter.

　　Nevertheless, compared with school district housing in Beijing's core urban areas, the prices in Huaqing Jiayuan are 'pale by comparison'.

　　A bungalow of 11 square meters in Wenchang Hutong, Xicheng District, within Beijing's Second Ring Road, is only simply decorated but priced as high as 2.3 million yuan, or 200,000 yuan per square meter. A salesperson told reporters that this property is in the school district of Beijing No. 2 Experimental Primary School. Another bungalow of 15 square meters is priced at over 2.5 million yuan, or 170,000 yuan per square meter.

　　Reporters learned that areas in Beijing where key primary school resources are concentrated have already formed several sizable hot school district housing clusters, such as the Zhongguancun area, including Zhongguancun, Xueyuan Road, and Wanliu; the Dongsi area in Dongcheng; the Ping'anli area in Xicheng; and the Chaoyangmen area in Chaoyang District.

　　School district housing prices rose by up to 53% in the first half of the year

　　Zhang Xu, an analyst at Lianjia Real Estate, told reporters that compared with 2012, the price gap between school district housing and non-school district housing in Beijing's six urban districts has been gradually widening since 2013, with school district housing prices rising significantly.

　　Lianjia monitored nearly 1,000 school district housing projects in Beijing's six urban districts, including over 490 projects within the enrollment zones of key primary schools and over 500 projects within the enrollment zones of ordinary non-key primary schools. Zhang Xu said that as of August this year, the average transaction price of the over 490 projects within key primary school enrollment zones was over 49,000 yuan per square meter, while in the first quarter of this year the average transaction price was 45,000 yuan per square meter. In just half a year, school district housing prices within key primary school enrollment zones rose by nearly 10%.

　　According to statistics from the Beijing Real Estate Transaction Management Network and other sources, the average transaction price of commercial housing in Beijing this year is only 20,000 yuan per square meter, which means that the average transaction price of the over 490 projects within key primary school enrollment zones monitored by Lianjia is more than twice the average transaction price of commercial housing in Beijing.

　　Monitoring by Century 21 shows that many school district housing prices near key primary schools are above 50,000 yuan per square meter, with many exceeding 70,000 yuan per square meter. Compared with the same period last year, the average listing prices of these second-hand homes rose significantly in the first half of this year. The largest increase was in Dongwangzhuang Community in Haidian District, adjacent to Zhongguancun Primary School, reaching 53%.

　　Zhang Xu told reporters that the rise in school district housing prices this year was partly due to the transaction structure. After Beijing's real estate regulation 'National Five Measures' detailed rules were introduced this year, homes eligible for income tax exemption under the 'five years + only home' criteria became 'hot cakes' in the second-hand housing market. These homes led the price increases in the second-hand housing market this year, and among them, second-hand homes with key primary school quotas saw even larger increases, ultimately creating a situation where some school district housing is approaching 100,000 yuan per square meter.