Why people rush to buy homes even amid price bubble

Fall is often considered the best season for the resale of houses in Beijing. After months of search, potential homebuyers finally decide to take the plunge before the year ends while sellers become more realistic, tired as they are of allowing strangers into their bedrooms to check out the house, about striking deal.

Yet the current frenzied home sales at stratospheric prices have surprised even some seasoned property agents, who say there are now only two kinds of homeowners: those who have just sold and bought homes and those who plan to do so soon.

The gains from selling one's house appear more attractive than ever. In the last five years, home prices have increased by three to four times in Beijing. In my neighborhood on the eastern edge of the city, a typical two-bedroom apartment with an area of about 100 square meters now sells for 4.2 million yuan ($688,400), five times more than what it cost in 2008 when the housing estate was launched.