Between welfare and markets: the rent-to-sale reform of public rental housing in Chongqing, China

Chongqing has launched a rent-to-sale reform that converts portions of its public rental housing (PRH) stock into regulated homeownership. This resident-centered mixed-methods policy review draws on 13 semi-structured interviews in two early pilot estates, Minxin Jiayuan and Meili Yangguang Jiayuan, conducted between January and February 2025, and is supplemented by policy documents, price data, and field observation. The findings show limited displacement of demand from the commercial housing market because strict resale caps, deep price discounts, and credit segmentation channel purchasers into a constrained tenure rather than speculative investment. Social effects are more pronounced: ownership opportunities heighten stakeholding, participation, and belonging, yet also sharpen status boundaries between purchasers and long-term renters, producing internal stratification. A plausible fiscal rationale, namely the partial monetisation of mature PRH stock and the transfer of some maintenance liabilities to owner-occupiers, helps explain the reform’s adoption, although net budget impacts require longitudinal evidence. This policy review frames regulated homeownership as a distinct hybrid tenure and specifies the conditions under which such conversions can expand affordable homeownership with minimal market substitution. It also argues that estate governance should better incorporate renters’ voices to preserve inclusion as sales proceed.