THE country's rein-in policies to cool the housing market should continue for at least another two to three years to discourage speculators, Chen Jie, a professor with Fudan University's housing policy research center, told the Shanghai Evening Post yesterday.

Home buyers in Shanghai now only account for 3 to 4 percent of the city's total population, and that figure didn't exclude those from other parts of the country and those who purchased more than one home, Chen said.

Chen was commenting after a CASS report said that most urban families couldn't afford homes. In cities such as Shanghai, analysts said, an average home exceeded 20 years of a household's income.