If commercial housing can't be sold, affordable housing can't be built, how to solve the housing contradiction?

The author of this article: Jiang Zhaohua is a distinguished professor and master's supervisor of Shandong Normal University

On January 11, the central bank approved a 100 billion yuan housing rental group housing loan. As soon as the news came out, it sparked a heated discussion in the market. Some media even speculated that the national team would enter the property market to bail out the market.

Strictly speaking, whether it is the housing rental loan support plan issued by the central bank, or the policy guidelines jointly issued by the central bank and the Financial Supervision Bureau to encourage commercial banks to issue housing rental group housing loans, it cannot be called the national team's entry into the market to support the bottom of the rescue plan, but it sends an important signal to the market: market-oriented solutions to the contradiction of "de-inversion" and "gap" on the housing supply side or the future direction.

At present, the prominent problem facing the mainland real estate market is the contradiction between the structural "de-opening" of the supply side and the structural "gap" of the demand side.

From the perspective of supply, a large number of stock housing in the market cannot be "realized" for sale, and the problem of "decentralization" has become the biggest "pain point" in the commercial housing market; from the demand side, the "gap" of affordable housing is still large, which cannot meet the housing security needs of low- and middle-income people in the city, especially new citizens.

At present, the real estate industry is facing the following problems: If commercial housing cannot be sold, who will pay for the "decentralization"; If the affordable housing cannot be built, who will make up for the shortfall? How to solve the contradiction between the "decentralization" of commercial housing and the "gap" of affordable housing? The conspicuous contradictions in three aspects need to be solved urgently.

First, the commercial housing cannot be sold, and who will pay for the "de-ification".

At present, the biggest problem facing the real estate market is that commercial housing cannot be sold, and there is a serious surplus of commercial housing, and the pressure of "decentralization" is greater.

According to the latest statistics of the E-House Real Estate Research Institute, in terms of the supply of commercial housing in the country, in addition to the current 673 million square meters of commercial housing for sale, there are nearly 1.2 billion square meters of newly started but unfinished real estate under construction, and a total of 1.87 billion square meters of commercial housing will become the stock of commercial housing for sale.

According to CRIC monitoring data, the reasonable interval of the "de-escalation" cycle is about 11-14 months, higher than this range indicates that the inventory scale is large, and below this range means that the inventory scale is small.

According to a sample survey of 100 cities across the country by the E-House Research Institute, the average period of "de-institutionalization" of commercial housing is currently 22.1 months, of which the "de-institutionalization" cycle is 16.1 months in first-tier cities, 19.4 months in second-tier cities, and 28.4 months in third- and fourth-tier cities. Commercial housing cannot be sold, and the issue of "decentralization" has become the "lifeblood" of real estate survival.

At present, affected by factors such as the downward pressure of the economy, the three-year epidemic and the downturn in the capital market, the actual disposable income of residents has declined, and the consumption momentum of housing investment is insufficient.

The market urgently needs business entities with super "purchasing power" to "hold up" the real estate "market", and stabilize market expectations and enhance real estate investment and consumer confidence through typical demonstration effects.

The relevant financial policies issued by the central bank and the financial supervision bureau encourage enterprises and social groups to purchase commercial housing in bulk for leasing and operation, which can achieve immediate results on the "de-commercialization" of commercial housing; at the same time, the pilot and full implementation of this policy may become an important vane of the "de-commercialization" of the real estate market. According to the analysis, local platform companies with state-owned assets or commercial housing are the main force in paying for the "de-institutionalization" of commercial housing.

Second, if the affordable housing cannot be built, who will fill the "gap".

The "Guiding Opinions on the Planning and Construction of Affordable Housing" (referred to as "Document No. 14") proposes that in the next five years, 35 cities with a population of more than 3 million will take the lead in Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen and other cities with a population of more than 3 million to build 6 million sets of affordable housing, and gradually form a dual-track system of "affordable housing + commercial housing".

Circular No. 14 clarifies that the target of affordable housing supply is the "wage earner" with low income, including different groups such as urban household registration families, personnel of government agencies and institutions, and talents introduced by enterprises. According to the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, about 9 million rental houses will be built nationwide.

According to this estimate, there is a shortage of at least 4 million affordable housing units in the country. As we all know, local finance is an important source of funds for the construction of affordable housing, and 96% of the national affordable housing projects come from local finance, and local financial resources are an important guarantee for the sustainability of affordable housing projects.

In the golden age of rapid real estate development, many local fiscal revenues mainly came from land auction income, and the "gap" in affordable housing construction funds was not prominent at that time.

Affected by the three-year epidemic, especially the downturn in the real estate market, the growth of fiscal revenue is facing huge challenges, local fiscal revenue is beyond its means, and the "gap" of affordable housing construction funds is increasing day by day.

The 100 billion yuan housing rental group housing purchase loan has been tried first, which has opened up a new idea for solving the contradiction between the "decentralization" of commercial housing and the "gap" of affordable housing.

According to preliminary estimates, through the policy guidelines of the central bank and the Financial Supervision Bureau, enterprises are encouraged to purchase up to 150,000 units of "de-institutionalized" commercial housing in batches, and an average of 20,000 sets of affordable housing can be allocated in 8 pilot cities across the country.

In the context of the current "dilemma" of oversupply of commercial housing and the shortage of affordable housing, the structural adjustment of the supply side may be a good medicine to resolve the contradiction between the "de-supply" of commercial housing and the "gap" of affordable housing: the central bank and the State Administration of Financial Supervision will give special policy support, real estate developers will survive with broken arms, local governments and financial institutions will work together, and the "gap" in the construction of affordable housing will be effectively made up for by relevant parties in the same direction.

3. Use market-oriented means to balance the contradiction between "de-institutionalization" and "gap".

Freezing three feet is not a day's cold, and the structural contradiction on the supply side of commercial housing has been around for a long time.

How to solve the contradiction between the "decentralization" of commercial housing and the "gap" of affordable housing has become an important proposition for the high-quality development of the housing security system. Under the continued sluggish market conditions, the "decentralization" of commercial housing relies on the policy force of the demand side such as purchase restrictions and loan restrictions on commercial housing, and it is difficult to achieve results in the short term.

At the same time, due to the decrease in land fiscal revenue, local finances continue to be "tight", and the pressure of the "gap" in the construction of local affordable housing has increased sharply. At the national level, special policies are given to encourage the supply-side structural adjustment of real estate enterprises to balance the contradiction between the "decentralization" of commercial housing and the "gap" of affordable housing: the central bank has piloted the housing security plan, the central bank and the regulatory bureau have jointly issued credit policy guidelines to encourage financial institutions to give social enterprises and groups bulk purchase of commercial housing for sublease, encourage real estate enterprises to ensure the delivery and delivery of projects under construction, and support social enterprise groups to expand the supply of housing rental and affordable housing. The contradiction between the "decentralization" and the "gap" in the construction of affordable housing will undoubtedly play a positive role.

Judging from the current situation, it is the future direction to use market-oriented means to solve the contradiction of "de-inversion" and "gap" on the housing supply side.