GUANGZHOU - Restrictions aimed at cooling the sizzling property market in Zhongshan, Guangdong province, will not continue next year, despite only coming into effect last month, according to a local housing and urban-rural development official.

The policy, which took effect on Nov 11, has thus become the shortest-lived property-control measure ever employed by a local government.

"The policy was introduced to control the property price in the short term, not to prevent people from buying new homes. So it will end at the end of the year. We do not feel great pressure to control the local property market, as the nationwide market will likely see a declining trend in both price and transactions," said Lu Dehua, director of the Zhongshan housing and urban-rural development bureau, during a local Party meeting.

Following the implementation of the policy, which set a maximum price of 5,800 yuan ($915) a square meter (sq m) for new residential houses, the average price of a home in Zhongshan fell to 5,681 yuan a sq m in November from 7,183 yuan in October, official figures showed.

Analysts and local residents said the policy was only temporary and aimed at enabling the local government to realize its target.

"With the decline in prices and transactions, the government has realized the annual target of maintaining home-price increases at a level lower than GDP growth," said Xue Jianxiong, an analyst with the real estate services and information provider E-house China.

"It will be impossible to limit the home price at 5,800 yuan a sq m next year, given that the land-lease price here has reached more than 3,000 yuan a sq m," said Zhang Jianping, who works in the Tanzhou township of Zhongshan.

In Tanzhou, which neighbors the coastal city of Zhuhai, the average price of new residential houses has declined by some 1,000 yuan a sq m in the last two months, he said.

"The recent decline was due to the price-restriction policy, which was temporarily introduced as a measure by the local government to realize its annual target of maintaining increases at a level lower than GDP growth," he said.

In the first half of the year, the average price of a new house in Zhongshan reached 6,024 yuan a sq m, an increase of 17.4 percent year-on-year, according to sources with the local housing and land resources authority.

The increase was much higher than the city's GDP growth of 11 percent last year.

"The recent decline in prices and the transaction volumes greatly helped the local government to meet its annual target," Zhang said.

In contrast with the loosening policy in Zhongshan, the authorities in larger cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou said tightening housing policies will remain effective next year.

For example, purchasing restrictions will continue to be effective in Beijing and Shanghai, said the Xinhua News Agency.

The government is setting up a national database for all homeowners and the existing restrictions on home purchases will be scrapped after the database is completed, said Jiang Weixin, the minister for housing and urban-rural development, in October.

Meanwhile, sources with the land resources and housing management authority in Guangzhou said tightening property measures will continue next year.

Guangzhou has not set a date to end the existing purchase-restriction policy, according to a report in the local New Express newspaper, citing an unnamed local housing management official.

Following the purchasing restrictions, Guangzhou has seen a decrease in property prices and transactions during the last three months, with the average price of new residential properties dropping to some 13,000 yuan a sq m in November, a decline of 3 percent compared with the previous month, said sources with the local land resources and housing management bureau.

"Compared with the situation in some second-tier cities, home prices in big cities will likely continue to drop next year," said Zhao Zhuowen, a council member of Guangdong Real Estate Association.