On the one hand, you can't afford to buy a house, and on the other hand, there are a large number of vacant houses, and the national think tank "5 words" suggests!
There are different opinions about the future trend of house prices. Some people predict that housing prices will fall, and they believe that after two or three decades of rapid development, the real estate industry in the mainland has a surplus of housing resources and housing prices are also high, so it will begin to pull back in the future. However, there is also a part of the population that firmly believes that house prices will continue to rise. They pointed out that there is still a lot of room for urbanization, and that there will still be a large number of rural people moving to cities every year in the future, and these people will eventually become home buyers, so the demand for housing will continue and housing prices will rise accordingly. In addition, they also mentioned the rise in the cost of building materials and labor costs, which will also push up housing prices. It can be seen that everyone has their own views and arguments about the future trend of housing prices.
Housing prices, a hot topic in society, tuggs at the heartstrings of countless people. The driving force behind it is that many factors are intertwined, the relationship between supply and demand and construction costs are the basis, and the impact of the policy environment should not be underestimated. On the stage of the property market, the role of investors is particularly crucial, they are either self-employed, or real estate speculation groups, or enterprises. The story of Wenzhou real estate speculation group has long spread all over the country, and the figure of the enterprise is relatively secret. In fact, enterprises are the biggest "speculators" in the mainland. According to the data, A-share listed companies alone hold more than 1.3 million houses, which can accommodate nearly 4 million people, which is equivalent to the number of residences in a medium and large city. In reality, most of the companies are not listed, and they also own a lot of real estate.
The activity of these speculators has caused housing prices in mainland China to continue to rise for more than 20 years. According to statistics, although the average house price has fallen in the past two years, by the end of 2023, the national average house price is still as high as 9,600 yuan per square meter. For hotspot cities, housing prices are ridiculously high and daunting. According to the data of the E-House Research Institute, the average house-price-to-income ratio in 100 cities across the country is 9.2, and the average house-price-to-income ratio in 70 cities across the country is as high as 13.3. This means that in these cities, a family would need to work for 13.3 years without food or drink to buy a house. However, the cost of living in big cities is very high, and many young people have difficulty even making ends meet, so how can they afford such an expensive house?
While many people feel like they can't afford to buy a home or have nothing to live in, there is no shortage of properties in the market. On the contrary, the number of homes on the market is currently surging, and there is even an oversupply. The main reason why many people do not have a house is that a small number of people have hoarded a large number of properties and choose to leave them vacant, neither to live in nor to rent them. The reason behind this is that people invest in properties for a profit, and new homes and quasi-new homes that have not been inhabited are more expensive when they are sold. At the same time, many investors own numerous properties and lack the time to rent them out one by one.
This situation has led to a rising residential vacancy rate in the mainland, and a large number of vacant houses have been idle, wasting a lot of social resources. According to survey data from the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, the overall housing vacancy rate in mainland China was about 22% in 2017, which means that about 65 million homes were vacant. Over the past five years, more than 7 million new homes have been added to the market each year, which means that the number of vacant homes is continuing to increase.
At present, there is no shortage of housing in the mainland, to be precise, most cities are no longer short of housing, and there is even a problem of surplus housing resources. However, house prices remain high and many people still cannot afford to buy a home. In this regard, we hope that speculators will stop hoarding properties and let these hoarded properties flow into the market, so that housing prices may gradually fall. However, relying solely on the purchase restriction policy will not solve this problem, as a large number of properties are already hoarded, and there is always a way for these investors to circumvent the purchase restriction policy.
5 words: levy a vacancy tax. Qiu Baoxing's original words on this issue are:
A package of taxes can be introduced to flatten the property market bubble in an orderly manner and control the whole process of real estate sales. For example, the introduction of a consumption tax to curb the investment in buying a house, a turnover tax to curb speculation, and a vacancy tax to reduce idle waste, etc., and then gradually involve the property sector.
Qiu Baoxing's remarks reveal the centrality of vacancy tax: In France, for example, high tax rates reduce vacancy rate Qiu Baoxing's remarks emphasize the central role of vacancy tax, the importance of which cannot be ignored. Why is the vacancy tax so crucial? This is inseparable from its successful practice in the early developed real estate countries. For example, countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Germany, Japan, and Spain have implemented property taxes, and the rates are quite high. The high vacancy tax in these countries has effectively reduced the residential vacancy rate. France, for example, has a staggeringly high vacancy tax. Vacancy tax is 10% of the total purchase price if the house is vacant for one year, 12.5% in the second year and 15% in the third year...... This means that if a house has been vacant in France for six years, the vacancy tax paid will be enough to buy another equivalent house. Other countries that have vacant taxes have similarly staggeringly high rates, making people aware of the huge burden they would place on their homes if they left them vacant.
When the vacancy tax is set high enough, people will not dare to vacate their houses easily. This also means that holding excess property is no longer considered a viable investment strategy. Are you for or against this crucial vacancy tax issue?