The desire to buy a house has reached a new low, the economy has recovered beyond expectations, and the state is going to raise the wages of the people to buy houses
Experts always say, why don't ordinary people buy houses when they have money? Even malicious words about not buying houses have come out. In fact, whether it is consumption or buying a house, as long as the people have money, you don't need to teach him to know that he consumes, and he will naturally buy a house if he needs to, and if the market is good, he will take the initiative to invest.
In the final analysis, it is still caused by the unstable income of ordinary people, low expectations for the future, and the expectation of falling housing prices, but fundamentally everyone is not confident. Those who have no money can't afford it, and those who have money are looking at those who don't.
On April 15, the latest "March 2024 Survey Report on Residents' Willingness to Buy Homes" released by the China Index showed that after the intensive introduction of policies, residents' confidence in buying houses has been slowly restored, and the pace of buying houses in the market remains cautious.
The report shows that although there are some signs of "small spring" in the property market in March, residents' willingness to buy houses is still relatively cold, with only 17% of respondents saying that their willingness to buy houses was stronger than last month, down 2.2 percentage points month-on-month, while 29% of respondents believed that their willingness to buy houses was weaker than last month, down 0.6 percentage points month-on-month. This shows that despite the recovery in the market, the recovery of residents' confidence in home ownership is still slow.
In terms of house price expectations, 31% of respondents expect house prices to fall, an increase of 1 percentage point month-on-month, indicating that residents' expectations for house price declines have risen again.
So it seems that sometimes we really can't take it for granted, thinking that under the trend of good property market transactions, the willingness of home buyers will have a big change. It's not that simple.
Let's take a look at the survey report for the fourth quarter of 2023 just released by the central bank, I just finished complaining, according to past experience, this time is to announce the data for the first quarter of 2024, but I didn't expect it to be a quarter late, so such data will lose its reference significance, after all, the property market in 2023 is still different from 2024, especially since the beginning of this year, after the optimization and adjustment of real estate policies in first-tier cities, there have been positive changes in the market, so I am looking forward to whether the next central bank report will be reflected.
According to the report, 20.2% of residents expect a "decline" in housing prices in the next quarter, and only 14.3% of residents choose to buy a house in the next three months, down 3 percentage points from the previous quarter. This is the first time since 2019 that more than 20% of residents expect housing prices to "fall" in the urban saver questionnaire report. In other words, it has hit a new high in 5 years, and it is also the lowest point of residents' expectations for housing prices.
Although the central bank's report for the first quarter of this year has not yet come out, combined with the data of the middle index, it seems that it is still difficult to improve the willingness to buy houses. Although the two reports have different sampling methods and different methods, they both reflect the pessimism of the general public about housing prices.
As mentioned earlier, people's refusal to buy a house is related to income expectations, and income is inseparable from the degree of economic recovery.
Recently, China's economic data for the first quarter was released, with a growth rate of 5.3%, which once again attracted global attention. This growth rate is not only far higher than the 5% predicted by foreign investment banks, but also demonstrates the resilience and vitality of China's economy.
The official interpretation is that the performance of the economic operation indicators in the first quarter is good, which can be evaluated by four key words: continuous rebound, steady start, steady progress, and good start. Such hot and warm data seems to be really imperceptible in the eyes of ordinary people. It's as if the temperature in the weather forecast is very different from the perceived temperature.
I believe the data is true, but I also believe that the feelings of ordinary people are real. Why is there such a "temperature difference" between macro data and micro feelings? This also illustrates the uneven nature of the current economic recovery, which exists in consumption and production, large enterprises, and small and medium-sized enterprises. This imbalance is a problem of the economic structure, and the only way to do this is to speed up structural reforms.
As a result of the sluggish employment structure and economic transmission, many people's employment may still be based on relatively concentrated industries, and the growth rate of the primary industry, agriculture and tertiary industry services, which are precisely the areas that absorb the largest number of employed people, are lower than the overall economic growth rate. Drought, drought, waterlogging, and the gap between everyone is widening. The dividends of economic growth have not been extended to ordinary people. Only when the income of ordinary people has increased will the economic recovery be more emboldened.
The official said that from the perspective of the degree of recovery, China's consumption recovery is not as good as production, and the recovery of small, medium and micro enterprises is not as good as that of large enterprises, so there is an obvious imbalance in the economic recovery. I think that's the truth.
In addition, real estate is a significant drag. As the real estate industry, which affects dozens or even hundreds of industries, its side effects are even more vivid. The real estate chain continues to be sluggish and the asset value has shrunk, resulting in great pressure on the entire real estate industry chain.
On April 17, Jin Xiandong, director of the Policy Research Office of the National Development and Reform Commission, said at the press conference that stabilizing employment and promoting income increase, effectively improving residents' consumption capacity, and doing everything possible to stabilize and promote employment. Improve the mechanism for adjusting the minimum wage standard, promote a reasonable and steady increase in residents' wage income, and increase the property income of urban and rural residents through multiple channels.
I think this idea is right, to increase employment, increase income, and let the people see that the confidence of economic recovery can benefit themselves, which is the important significance of economic recovery, but how to increase it has not yet been said. Only the common people have money, who doesn't want to spend? Who doesn't want to change their house to a bigger one?
Previously, the Economic Daily mentioned that holding housing is an important channel to increase property income, and increasing the housing property income of urban and rural residents will be conducive to expanding the scale of middle-income groups. However, increasing housing property income is not to encourage speculation, but should be based on the steady and healthy development of the real estate market.
But now the problem is that the people don't believe that buying a house can make money, and it's good not to lose money. Anyway, in the past, buying a house to make money was cheaper than those who speculated in houses, and the houses in the hands of ordinary people have been occupied by themselves, and they have not been converted into income.
A stable market environment will create a steady stream of wealth accumulation for the people, of course, it is no longer just the traditional wealth accumulation under the rise in housing prices, but also includes various innovations, how to give the dividends of real estate to homeowners, which is what will be discussed in the future.