The Politburo meeting clarified the policy direction of the property market, and the coordinated implementation of various departments is the key!

■ Chen Wenjing, Director of Market Research of China Index Research Institute

On April 30, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee held a meeting to analyze and study the current economic situation and economic work, the meeting clearly set the tone for real estate, pointed out the future policy direction of the property market, and pointed out that it is necessary to continue to prevent and resolve risks in key areas. We will continue to adhere to city-specific policies, consolidate the responsibilities of local governments, real estate enterprises, and financial institutions, and earnestly do a good job in ensuring the delivery of housing to protect the legitimate rights and interests of home buyers. It is necessary to combine the new changes in the supply and demand relationship of the real estate market and the new expectations of the people for high-quality housing, coordinate the study of policies and measures to digest the stock of real estate and optimize the incremental housing, and pay close attention to building a new model of real estate development to promote the high-quality development of real estate.

1. Preventing and resolving real estate risks is still the focus, and the meeting emphasized the responsibility of all parties to ensure the delivery of housing and protect the legitimate rights and interests of buyers

The meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee emphasized that "we must continue to prevent and resolve risks in key areas." We will continue to adhere to city-specific policies, consolidate the responsibilities of local governments, real estate enterprises and financial institutions, and earnestly do a good job in ensuring the delivery of housing to protect the legitimate rights and interests of home buyers." The prevention and resolution of real estate risks is still placed in an important position, of which ensuring the delivery of housing is the top priority. The change from "guaranteed delivery of buildings" to "guaranteed delivery of houses" in the past is enough to show that the central government attaches great importance to protecting the legitimate rights and interests of home buyers. Previously, the Standing Committee of the People's Republic of China on March 22 also clearly pointed out that "it is necessary to further optimize the real estate policy, continue to do a good job in ensuring the delivery of buildings, ensuring people's livelihood and ensuring stability, and further promote the implementation of the urban real estate financing coordination mechanism". It is expected that the "guaranteed delivery" of the property market is expected to continue in the future, alleviating residents' concerns about the delivery of off-plan housing and stabilizing market expectations.

Since the beginning of this year, the financing coordination mechanism has become an important measure to meet the reasonable financing needs of real estate enterprises under different ownership systems and resolve real estate risks, and has achieved positive results since its implementation in January, according to the data disclosed by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development on April 3, all cities at and above the prefecture level have established an urban real estate financing coordination mechanism. As of March 31, 1,979 projects have received a total of 469.03 billion yuan of bank credit and 1,247 projects have received 155.41 billion yuan of loans. In the short term, it is expected that the "white list" of real estate projects will continue to expand, and at the same time, this meeting clearly requires "consolidating the responsibilities of local governments, real estate enterprises and financial institutions", especially the importance of compacting the responsibilities of financial institutions is more prominent On the one hand, this measure is conducive to alleviating the financial pressure of enterprises, and on the other hand, the construction process of the project continues to advance, which is also conducive to project delivery, stabilizing home buyers' expectations, and boosting the sales of new housing projects.

Second, the meeting called for continued adherence to city-specific policies, and it is expected that the optimization of core city policies is expected to be accelerated, and the importance of "good houses" has also been mentioned to a new height, and the pace of construction may be accelerated

Under the new situation, since the beginning of this year, all localities have continued to optimize real estate regulation and control policies according to urban policies. Among them, the first-tier cities as a whole maintained a steady pace of optimization, the second-tier core cities increased their optimization efforts, Hangzhou lifted the purchase restriction on second-hand housing in March, Chengdu completely canceled the purchase restriction in April, and Beijing optimized the purchase restriction policy outside the Fifth Ring Road on April 30, etc., all of which are important manifestations of the city-specific policies and giving full play to the autonomy of local regulation and control.

The improvement of demand-side policies in various regions has had a positive effect on the market. According to the monitoring of the middle index, as of now, in addition to Hainan Province, the core cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen policy is still relatively strict, Guangzhou (below 120 square meters), Hangzhou (new houses), Tianjin (120 square meters below new houses), Xi'an and other cities in some core areas are still limited purchase policy, it is expected that these cities will continue to optimize the purchase restriction policy, especially in the second-tier cities, the pace of purchase restriction policy adjustment or will be accelerated, while the core cities to reduce the proportion of mortgage down payment, reduce mortgage interest rates, Policies such as reducing transaction taxes and fees are also expected to be adjusted.

In addition, the "people's new expectations for high-quality housing" proposed, on the one hand, means that the importance of the supply side of "good houses" has risen to a new height, after the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development Minister Ni Hong repeatedly emphasized that "we must make efforts to build good houses", and encourage development enterprises to build green, low-carbon, intelligent and safe houses. Only the continuous and in-depth promotion of the construction of "good houses" can better improve the quality of residents' living and continuously meet the people's yearning for a better life.

On the other hand, policy support for diversified demand for improved housing is expected to continue to increase, and more cities may give greater policy support to multi-child families and elderly families by increasing the amount of provident fund loans, increasing the number of provident fund loans, and reducing intermediary fees and transaction taxes.

3. The meeting proposed to study and digest the stock of real estate and optimize the policy measures for incremental housing, and the coordinated policy is expected to accelerate the implementation

In the past two years, the second-hand housing market has maintained a certain degree of activity as a whole, driven by the "price for volume", with the reduction of second-hand housing prices and residents' concerns about the delivery of off-plan housing, the new housing market continues to face de-pressure, and the linkage between new houses and second-hand houses is not smooth. In addition, the stock of idle land and non-residential properties in the hands of real estate enterprises also need to be revitalized. The meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee for the first time proposed "overall study and digestion of stock real estate and optimization of incremental housing policy measures", and it is expected that more targeted policies will be introduced in the future in terms of the linkage of new housing and second-hand housing transactions, the revitalization of stock assets and the combination of affordable housing.

In the past period of time, many places have launched the housing "old for new" policy, including the model of "priority sale" through intermediaries, as well as the mode of local acquisition of second-hand houses in the hands of the masses as rental housing through the state-owned assets platform, and the mode of using the sales proceeds to purchase new houses, these policies are conducive to smoothing the replacement chain of first-hand and second-hand houses and enhancing the activity of the property market. Since the beginning of this year, Zhengzhou, Changsha, Nanjing and other core cities have introduced relevant policies to support housing "trade-in", local state-owned assets platform acquisition of second-hand housing as rental housing, is conducive to increasing the supply of affordable housing, but also is a useful attempt to revitalize the stock and digest the inventory, the current housing "trade-in" policy is still in the exploration stage, the future of relevant supporting funds, overall planning methods still need to be further improved.

In addition, some cities have also introduced relevant policies to encourage market operators to rebuild their own idle and inefficient use of commercial office and other non-residential stock housing into affordable rental housing, which is also an important way to revitalize and digest the stock of real estate, and the increase in the supply of affordable housing is conducive to accelerating the construction of a "market + security" housing system, which is conducive to promoting the construction of a new model of real estate development.

From the perspective of optimizing incremental housing, accelerating the establishment of a linkage mechanism of "people, housing, land and money", optimizing the land supply structure, and improving the quality of housing products may be important directions. According to the monitoring of the China Index, as of April 29, 15 of the key 22 cities have announced this year's land supply plan, and the overall planned supply of commercial residential land has decreased by about 10% year-on-year, and the trend of land shrinkage continues. At the same time, all localities continue to adjust the structure of land supply and increase the supply of high-quality land plots to meet the new expectations of the people for high-quality housing. For example, in 2024, the proportion of land supply in Beijing's central urban area will increase by 5 percentage points to 25% compared with 2023, Chongqing proposes to give priority to the supply of high-quality land plots in mature areas, and Chengdu's residential land supply is mainly concentrated in areas with a short sales cycle of commercial residential buildings or within a reasonable range and with a small inventory of commercial buildings. In 2024, the land supply in key cities will be "reduced in quantity and improved in quality", which will help the real estate market enter a new balance between supply and demand.

On the whole, the Politburo meeting set the tone for the property market, and the prevention and resolution of real estate risks is still the focus, and at the same time, it is proposed to study and digest the stock of real estate and optimize the policy measures of incremental housing, which points out the direction for the next real estate policy, and the coordinated implementation of various departments in the future will be the key to promoting the stabilization of the real estate market and the high-quality development of the real estate industry!