(Yicai Global) July 11 -- New regulatory policies about the property market, introduced during the second quarter of the year, are showing their signs in Shanghai. Local property market continues to slump, while a wait-and-see sentiment spreads. However, lack of significant drop in house prices has led to a dramatic decline in the willingness and expectations of consumers to buy a house.

In the second quarter of this year, Shanghai house-hunters' expectations to buy a house fell sharply, the latest survey results of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (SUFE) show. Some 63.8 percent of local house-hunters believe that it is not a good time to buy a house now, and 63.3 percent consider it is not a good idea to buy a house in the next six months.

Professor Xu Guoxiang, director of the research center for applied statistics at SUFE, said no new real estate regulation policy was introduced this quarter, but the effect of the most stringent regulatory policy implemented last quarter has begun to gradually appear, which effectively increased the cost of speculation and reduced the market demand. Shanghai property market showed a rapid pause, leading to increased expectations among consumers for a price drop. However, some consumers are satisfied with the government's control over the property market.

But, as a first-tier city, Shanghai is still facing big pressure from house price rises. Prices have not dropped significantly after the new policies, while the control policy is still limited to short-term restrictions on purchases and loans, lacking a long-term system-construction to play the market's role of spontaneous regulation. Some consumers expressed dissatisfaction with this phenomenon, which can help deepen wait-and-see policy on their side.