SHANGHAI will keep its feet pressed down hard on the brakes to rein in rocketing home prices in a bid to steer the housing market back to its fundamentals to help ordinary people afford a home to live in rather than to invest or to speculate, Mayor Han Zheng said yesterday.

"It's an indisputable fact that home prices in Shanghai are too high," Han said at a press conference after the 22nd International Business Leaders' Advisory Council. "The over-speculation distorts the market and hurt the interests of common consumers."

"The Shanghai government has a clear target on its housing measure - to steer the market back to its fundamentals," Han said, adding that housing is an economic and social issue.

Last Thursday, Shanghai unveiled its latest measure to curb housing speculation when it joined Beijing to cap the number of homes a family can purchase. Under the measure, a family is entitled to buy only one home in the city "for a certain period of time." This policy applies to both new and existing homes.

Another brake the government is considering is a new housing tax.

The latest action came after previous cooling-off efforts launched since mid-April, including higher down payment, have yet to cut house prices.

The average price kept climbing in Shanghai, fueled by robust sales of mid to high-end houses. It edged up 0.4 percent to 21,230 yuan (US$3,178) per square meter in September, rising for the third straight month.

New home sales also rose to a nine-month high in the city in September amid a robust supply. Sales of new homes rose 82 percent over August to 1.33 million square meters last month, the highest monthly volume since January.