More affordable housing

The hesitation by many local officials to announce their 2011 targets for property-price control does not bode well for the Chinese government's efforts to cool the real estate market.

Worse, those few cities that have released property-price caps have seemingly come up with a sort of excuse for more hikes in local property prices.

With just a week to go before the deadline, it was reported that nearly 95 percent of cities and regions in China have still not released their 2011 targets for controlling house prices.