Long drought is a sweet and dry. On November 11, the real estate sector in Shanghai and Shenzhen, which had been quiet for a long time, ushered in an outbreak, with many stocks such as China Merchants Shekou, Gemdale Group, and Taihe Group rising and stopping, and housing stocks in Hong Kong stocks also rose. In terms of bonds, a number of real estate bonds that have previously fallen sharply have risen by more than double digits.
Prior to this, the real estate market faced continuous regulation, and the tightening of credit in the second half of the year made market transactions shrink sharply, and some housing enterprises suffered a capital chain crisis, which led to a continuous decline in the two markets of stocks and bonds.
What has triggered this round of capital market heating up is a series of recent positive information. On November 9, the China Interbank Market Dealers Association held a symposium of representatives of real estate enterprises, conveying the news of the relaxation of financing and merger and acquisition policies; on November 10, Shenyang is suspected of significantly relaxing regulatory policies; and recently, goldman Sachs, BlackRock and other foreign institutions are buying Chinese real estate enterprise bonds.
Among them, due to the failure to be confirmed by the parties concerned, some of the information is obviously suspected of "Rashomon". But for the real estate industry, where confidence has fallen to the bottom, the boost is still clear.
In fact, since the central bank's Monetary Policy Committee held its regular meeting in the third quarter of 2021 on September 24 this year, expectations of policy fine-tuning have begun to appear. In the past month or so, in addition to public statements, regulatory departments at all levels and industry associations have held 3 housing enterprise forums, and the density is quite rare.
The good news released by these actions has become the source of confidence for housing enterprises. But in fact, unlike the interpretation of external disturbances, the regulatory authorities have never released a clear "loosening" signal. Therefore, the extent to which the industry can maintain optimism at this stage is still worth discussing.
Affected by the tightening of credit policies and other factors, since July this year, the national commercial housing sales scale has declined for three consecutive months year-on-year, and by September, the decline has reached double digits. Not only the traditional "golden nine silver ten" is insufficient, the capital situation of some housing enterprises has also become tense, due to the peak period of debt repayment, a small number of enterprises have been on the verge of default.
Affected by this, the second round of concentrated land supply in hot cities ended in a cold end. Compared with the enthusiasm of the first round of land supply, the decline in the premium rate and the increase in the auction rate are common phenomena, and many plots have "unpaid first streams" due to insufficient number of applications.
In the same period, some institutions began to sell housing enterprise bonds, which led to a sharp decline in the price of some DOLLAR bonds. The stock market has also performed poorly, since the third quarter, the A-share real estate sector has been dominated by a negative decline, and there is rarely an upward trend. This sudden decline has caught many practitioners off guard.
Things began to change from the end of September.
On September 24, the monetary policy committee of the central bank held a regular meeting for the third quarter of 2021, saying that it would "safeguard the stable and healthy development of the real estate market and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of housing consumers".
On September 29, the People's Bank of China and the Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission jointly held a symposium on real estate finance work. The meeting requested that financial institutions should cooperate with relevant departments and local governments to jointly maintain the stable and healthy development of the real estate market and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of housing consumers in accordance with the principles of rule of law and marketization.
On October 15, the People's Bank of China held a press conference on financial statistics for the third quarter of 2021, and Zou Lan, director of the Department of Financial Markets, explained for the first time the phenomenon of credit tightening, "The risk exposure of individual large housing enterprises, the risk appetite of financial institutions for the real estate industry has decreased significantly, there has been a consistent contraction behavior, and the growth rate of real estate development loans has declined significantly." He called the change a "short-term overreaction" by financial institutions.
In addition, "some financial institutions also have some misunderstandings about the financing management rules of the 30 pilot housing enterprises 'three lines and four files', which will require the balance of interest-bearing liabilities of 'red file' enterprises not to be added, misunderstanding that banks are not allowed to issue new development loans, and after the enterprise sales collection repays the loan, the newly started projects that should have been reasonably supported cannot get loans, which also causes some enterprises to tighten the capital chain to a certain extent." ”
In fact, with this round of statements, the credit environment has also improved. A housing enterprise in East China told the 21st Century Business Herald that although it is not a common phenomenon, some banks have restarted the approval process for development loans, and mortgage loans that have been stagnant have also begun to be issued.
The mortgage interest rate data of key cities monitored by shell research institute shows that the first home loan interest rate of 90 cities monitored by shell research institute in October was 5.73%, and the second set of interest rates was 5.99%, both of which were 1 basis point lower than the previous month, which was the first time that the above indicators fell month-on-month during the year.
On November 10, the central bank released statistics on individual home loans for a single month for the first time. Among them, medium- and long-term loans to residents increased by 422.1 billion yuan in October, turning positive for the first time since May this year. And in the same period comparison of the past decade, the scale is only lower than that of October 2016.
"This is also a manifestation of the improvement of the housing credit environment." Xu Xiaole, chief market analyst of Shell Research Institute, told 21st Century Business Herald that substantial improvement will take time.
Since late October, regulators have made few public statements about real estate, but their concern for the market has not diminished.
In less than a month from October 15 to November 9, the China Real Estate Association, the Department of Foreign Investment of the National Development and Reform Commission, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, and the China Interbank Market Dealers Association held three representative housing enterprise forums.
Judging from the information conveyed at the above meeting, improving financing policies and restoring market confidence are the main demands of the participating housing enterprises. In a recent discussion, some participants put forward suggestions such as loosening the "three red lines" policy, increasing the credit limit, and not downgrading the stock project (when rating).
These recommendations were quickly interpreted as positive by the market. However, a real estate company person who participated in a symposium told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that such appeals are only the suggestions of the participants, not the final conclusion.
He said that in a discussion he participated in, the regulatory authorities mainly understood the front-line situation and listened to the suggestions of all parties, and no clear commitments were made at the meeting, and no public information was released after the meeting. Therefore, it is still unknown whether the policy will eventually be adjusted according to the wishes of the participants.
"It can only be said that the market needs to be good too much, and it needs confidence too much." He said.
On November 10, another specious Rashomon incident once again stimulated market sentiment. On the same day, there were rumors that Shenyang would introduce 6 measures, including lifting purchase restrictions, lifting sales restrictions, relaxing deed tax policies, not recognizing houses, improving the efficiency of mortgage loan lending, and relaxing filing prices, thereby significantly loosening the regulation of the property market.
On November 11, a senior practitioner of the Shenyang property market told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that the company's leaders participated in the recent discussion of the government department and heard about similar policies, but did not see specific documents. As of press time, the Shenyang Municipal Real Estate Bureau told the media that Shenyang still implements the current policies such as purchase restrictions and sales restrictions, and has not changed.
Prior to this, Wuhan, Yiwu, Harbin and Changchun had all introduced so-called "rescue" policies. In contrast, the rumored version of Shenyang is the most stimulating and therefore the most concerned.
Even if the veracity of some of the news is in doubt, market confidence is still boosted. In fact, under the stimulus of various favorable circumstances, since November, the two markets of real estate stocks and bonds have shown signs of recovery. On November 9, Shanghai and Shenzhen real estate stocks have risen significantly.
Taking advantage of this "East Wind", on November 5 and November 9, Xu Rongmao, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Shimao Group, spent about HK$1.623 billion to increase his holdings in Shimao Group twice. On the evening of November 9, Xuhui Holdings also issued an announcement that in the form of capital allocation, the majority shareholder Lin family promised to "fully cover the bottom".
In September this year, some real estate companies briefly injected confidence into the market by increasing their holdings by major shareholders. In contrast, when the protective behavior occurred, the market sentiment was obviously higher.
Recently, the Goldman Sachs portfolio management team said in an interview with the media that it is buying Chinese real estate enterprise bonds. Its team members said that the chain reaction caused by the risk events of individual housing enterprises, the risk of infection has been overestimated, and the market is digesting this risk. In addition, another international investment institution, BlackRock, has recently bought shares in Chinese real estate companies.
The signal significance conveyed by "foreign capital bottoming" is obviously stronger than that of "domestic investment protection". Combined with the information previously conveyed, it is not difficult to understand the unexpected reaction of the two markets in recent days.
However, some analysts pointed out that the significance of its signal should not be over-interpreted, because the small adjustment after the policy bottomed out does not mean that a large-scale loosening behavior appears, nor can it be simply understood as a "rescue". Compared with the wishful thinking of the outside world, the regulator has never released a clear signal of relaxation. And if you filter the current cumbersome information, there are not many certainty and substantial benefits.
In a statement in mid-October, the top management made a tone for the real estate market, "There are individual problems in the real estate market, but the risk is generally controllable, reasonable capital needs are being met, and the overall situation of the healthy development of the real estate market will not change." "This also means that there is no basis for a significant policy relaxation at present."
Yan Yuejin, director of the think tank center of Shanghai Yiju Research Institute, believes that it is too early to talk about "loosening". We should pay close attention to the market changes in the past two months, and in the case of credit policies that have improved, if the housing and land markets have improved, the policies do not need to be significantly adjusted.
The above-mentioned housing enterprises also believe that even if the policy is adjusted, the regulatory level is more inclined to use window guidance to make covert adjustments. This approach is more conducive to expectation management, because there is no need to make a clear policy release, and the market side can perceive subtle changes at the implementation level.
He also said that the magnitude of this adjustment will not be very large and is limited to the current caliber.
For more information, please download the 21 Finance APP
!["Old Man's Ring" announces a new screenshot: The beasts of the Forest of Mist show their hospitality[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)