China joins school zone gold rush

The streets around Beijing's top primaries are plastered with flyers, posted by parents desperate to buy any properties available. Photo / AP

Even the most silver-tongued estate agent would struggle to wax lyrical over 5 Dongluoquan Hutong.

In one of central Beijing's back alleys, what would once have been a modest two-bedroom courtyard house has been brutally divided with PVC wall panels into 11 micro-apartments as small as 3.7sq m each. In one, a single bed touches three walls.

Nevertheless, the new flats quickly sold, and at $320,000 each, commanded a price per square metre that rivals Mayfair. This is what happens when exuberant capitalism, ambitious families and a shortage of good state schools come together.

Since April, Beijing's very best schools have been admitting pupils based only on catchment area. After a baby boom from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, competition is stiff this year.

Eleven families snapped up the rooms in 5 Dongluoquan Hutong. They will not live there, but will register their children to the address so they can go to Shijia Primary, among the top 10 of the city's 1500 primaries. Shen (not his real name) said he was already trying to win his son a place at Shijia, a week after his wife gave birth. He asked not to be named in case it affected his chances.

"I have been looking for a micro-apartment for three months but the suitable ones sell very quickly. I got a call from an agent about one [9.3sq m] house, on the market for 1.8 million yuan ($379,000), but when I got back to Beijing the next day it had gone."

Shen, who put down a $20,000 deposit with a local estate agent to show his commitment, said it was essential that his boy got into Shijia or another top school, Beijing's No 2 Experimental Primary.

"They have good teachers and facilities ... If my son is trained well in primary school, he will do well later in life," he said.

As an employee in a government company, he could previously have expected his son to be given preferential access to a top school. Until April, the quotas in many of Beijing's best schools were filled with the children of officials, state companies or those with the right connections.

But this year the Government swept away the privileges, triggering a mad rush for properties. The streets around Beijing's top primaries are plastered with flyers, posted by parents desperate to buy any properties available. One agent, Wang Yiqiang, said three or four customers contacted his firm every day about properties in prize catchment areas. "We can sell these micro-flats at anything up to three million yuan in a few days," he said.