By Wang Zhiyong
If previous Olympics are anything to go by, apartment rentals in Beijing can be expected to go up by three or four times, in some cases by as much as 10 times during the Games. Many Beijing landlords are licking their lips at the prospect of making a killing.
With approximately 100 days before the Beijing Olympics 62-year-old Long Qianjiang was sitting in the sun on a spring afternoon reading an English book. He hadn't gone with his wife to exercise in the nearby park as he usually did. "My house has been approved as an 'Olympic Home.' When the Olympic Games start we'll have foreign friends staying with us so I am trying to learn a few words of English."
Long's house is in the Huizhongli Community, near the "Bird's Nest" Olympic stadium. Some 300 households there have been enrolled in an "Olympic Homes" program sponsored by the Beijing government to provide officially-endorsed short-term rentals for the flood of visitors to the Games. The landlords can expect to make 500 yuan (50 Euros) per day for a single room, four times higher than the normal rent.
Not all families are as lucky as the Longs, who will get a high rent during the Olympics on the strength of filling in a form. But other house owners expect to benefit from the event by other means.
Related info: Rent a house during the Olympics