The situation of the property market in recent months is indeed somewhat unexpected, according to the past, the last two months of each year are the busiest time for real estate companies, after all, it is the best period for sprint performance, and real estate companies will naturally not let go of this time to make big discounts.
But what I never expected was that compared with the sprint performance at the end of the year before the epidemic, the sales situation at the end of 2023 was obviously bleak.
According to the data released by the China Index Research Institute, the sales area of the key 100 cities in 2023 will decline slightly by 6% year-on-year. In December, the transaction area of newly built commercial residential buildings in the key 100 cities increased by about 19% month-on-month, but the year-on-year decline was still about 17%, and the absolute scale was at the lowest level in the same period since 2016.
In terms of second-hand housing, the average weekly sales area of second-hand houses in key cities in the first four weeks of December (12.4-12.31) decreased by 6.2% compared with the weekly average in November, and increased by 39.8% over the same period last year, which is still a large gap compared with 2019.
During this year's New Year's Day, the average daily transaction area of 40 representative cities decreased by more than two percent compared with the New Year's Day holiday last year. It can be seen that market confidence is still insufficient, and the national property market is still in a period of deep adjustment.
The expected effect of the recovery of the property market is still not ideal, and many industries have also been implicated, and even local financial revenues have plummeted. And to develop to such a situation, in fact, Wang Jianlin, a real estate company boss, has already predicted a long time ago:
The existing land supply and housing stock have caused many local projects to be unsold, and in addition to the continuous growth of local debts in the past two years, local governments have mainly relied on land sales to repay their debts. In this case, the supply of land and real estate is further amplified, and these two factors have led to an oversupply in the market, and other cities except for hot cities will not need to be regulated in another two years.
Judging from the current situation, what Mr. Wang said is true! Looking at the current number of vacant houses, it is said that it has reached 120 million units, which is enough to meet the needs of 360 million people according to a family of three.
In addition, the sales of second-hand houses in the past two years are also extremely unoptimistic, not to mention the surge in listings, many houses with good decoration and good surrounding facilities have even been listed for several months.
It is reported that at present, the proportion of families holding two or more houses in the mainland has exceeded 41.2%, but according to the current sales trend, these families in China will have to face "three major troubles" in the future:
First, the value of the house has depreciated and the assets have shrunk significantly
Today, the urban housing ownership rate in China has reached 96 percent, and although not everyone has a house, it can at least show that the remaining people who cannot afford to buy a house in the city have almost all enjoyed the "one house per household" in the rural areas.
Moreover, in the past two years, China has been accelerating the supply of affordable housing, which means that even if young people cannot afford to buy commercial housing in the city, they can enjoy affordable housing at a lower cost in the future to solve the housing problem.
In addition, for those young people with lower incomes, their rental conditions in the city will be further improved as the urban village renovation work progresses. After all, after the renovation and renovation of the old houses in the urban village, the living environment of the tenants will also be greatly improved.
In addition, at the recent Alpha Investment Summit, Zhu Haibin, chief economist of JPMorgan Chase China, predicted that China's economic growth rate in 2024 will be 4.9%, and consumption may contribute two-thirds of the growth rate. In addition, it is expected that China's exports will still face greater pressure in 2024, and their contribution to the economy may remain negative.
This also means that under the continuous downward trend of buying a house, it is more difficult for housing prices to rise than to fall.
Second, the cost of owning a house has increased significantly
For families who currently own two or more properties on hand, most of them buy houses because they are investing, after all, in the era of soaring housing prices, buying and selling a house should be considered the most profitable thing in the industry. But as time goes on, the more houses there are, the more pressure there will be to hold them.
First of all, the landlord tax is landed, and it is difficult to rent and maintain loans
Because it is possible to achieve sufficient cash flow through rental loans, it has not been too much of an impact on property hoarders even if housing prices fall.
However, with the implementation of the landlord tax, this will bring greater challenges to investors, especially those who buy houses with high leverage loans, and it will become a huge problem to get out.
At present, the landlord tax has been piloted in three provinces, including Hebei, Hunan and Yunnan. For example, in Yunnan, a 10% tax rate is applied to the income brought by individual rental housing, and 20% if the rental is a non-residential property such as apartments and shops. It is equivalent to renting out a shop for an annual income of 100,000 yuan, and you have to pay a tax of 20,000 yuan. This tax rate is top-notch!
Secondly, the property tax is landed
In recent years, with the sharp decline in house sales, the scale of land acquisition by real estate companies has decreased sharply, and the recession of physical enterprises has been superimposed, and places that are highly dependent on land income have now doubled the pressure on fiscal revenue.
In order to alleviate the pressure, in March last year, the Minister of Finance said in a series of thematic press conferences: "The government's tight life is not a short-term response, but a long-term policy that should be adhered to. ”
In the past year, it is true that all localities have been reducing expenditures, such as cleaning up non-staff personnel, rectifying internal staff, and so on. However, even so, the pressure on local fiscal revenue still exists, for this reason, Lou Jiwei, former minister of the Ministry of Finance, once mentioned in the article "China's Fiscal System Reform and Future Prospects in the New Era" published in "Comparison": real estate tax is the most suitable tax as a local tax, and the pilot should be carried out as soon as possible after the economy turns to normal growth.
It can be seen that the property tax is getting closer and closer, and if it were not for the impact of the epidemic in the past two years, it may have been implemented long ago. And once the property tax is implemented, the cost of owning a house for multi-suite families will inevitably increase significantly.
At present, due to the downturn in the property market, the property tax is not fully covered for the time being, and only 20% of it is being trialed. But it's clear that just because there's no comprehensive coverage doesn't mean it's never coming.
Once fully implemented, in order to reduce the pressure, many owners who hold real estate will sell all the excess properties in their hands, and the market supply will increase significantly, and the probability of house price depreciation will be greater.
Third, it is difficult to monetize
Although the real estate tax has not yet been fully implemented, in the past two years, including first-tier cities, there has even been a surge in listings, such as Guangzhou, which has been rising since 2023, and the number of listings on shells alone has exceeded 142,500 units. In one year, the number of second-hand housing listings has increased by 50%!
At present, the number of second-hand houses listed in Beijing has reached 166,000 units, and in September 2022, the number of second-hand houses listed in Beijing was only 97,000 units, and the number of listings has increased by more than 60,000 units in just over three months.
Let's take a look at Shanghai, online data shows that Shanghai's current second-hand housing has always maintained a high level, exceeding 130,000 units.
With such a large number of listings, not to mention the old houses with complete facilities, outdated decoration, and traces of residence, it is difficult to realize those new houses with luxurious decoration.
But after all, a city is a central area, which means that the vast majority of second-hand houses will face the big trouble of realizing difficulties.
In addition to the difficulty of realization, it is also difficult to rent houses in many cities at present, especially after the introduction of affordable rental housing in various places, most people who meet the conditions will prefer affordable housing, and many commercial houses will have to face the dilemma of not being able to sell and rent.
Wan Ziwen said: Every word of the article was typed out by me, and I clicked "watching" to let me know that you are also "doing your best" for life.