Raising a plate to bid for the use rights of residential lands no longer works in Shanghai as the city adopted a new bidding method, the Beijing Morning Post reported today.

Developers now enter silent sealed bids, as is done in many other countries around the world, the report said.

"This method may stimulate developers to offer a higher price because they have only one bidding chance in most cases," said Yang Hongxu, an analyst from E-house China R&D Institute.

The inadequate land supply and growing bidding prices are blamed for boosting the cost of housing in the city.

The Shanghai Housing and Land Resources Administration Bureau has accelerated its pace in offering land to alleviate the problem.

It had offered five parcels of land for public transfer by July, equivalent to the number for the whole of 2006. But fewer parcels are being offered for residential property, further tightening supply.

New houses were sold at an average 11,577 yuan (US$1,543) per square meter in October, an increase of 10.18 percent from a month ago, according to Shanghai Youwin Real Estate Information Service Co Ltd.

(Shanghai Daily November 2, 2007)