Is the era of unlimited purchases back?
On the evening of May 6, Shenzhen further optimized the real estate policy, mentioning that seven areas, including Yantian District, Bao'an District (excluding Xin'an Street and Xixiang Street), Longgang District, etc., relaxed purchase restrictions, and the payment period requirements for individual income tax and social security for home buyers were adjusted from 3 years to 1 year, and Shenzhen households with two or more minor children can buy another house in the above areas.
In the view of Zhang Dawei, chief analyst of Centaline Real Estate, no matter how effective Shenzhen's loosening of the purchase restriction policy is, a fact that cannot be ignored is that 2024 is the first year of the return to the era of purchase restrictions, and "the national property market purchase restriction policy has opened an era of comprehensive purchase restrictions after 14 years of implementation."
Shenzhen loosens purchase restrictions
According to the document issued by the Shenzhen Municipal Housing and Construction Bureau, the zoning optimization housing purchase restriction policy mainly involves seven districts, including Yantian District, Bao'an District (excluding Xin'an Street and Xixiang Street), Longgang District, Longhua District, Pingshan District, Guangming District and Dapeng New District.
Within these scopes, non-Shenzhen household registration households and adult single persons (including divorced) are limited to purchasing one house, and buyers are required to provide proof of continuous payment of individual income tax or social insurance in Shenzhen for one year before the date of purchase; Households with two or more minor children registered in the city may purchase another house on the basis of implementing the existing housing purchase restriction policy.
At the same time, enterprises and institutions that meet the conditions of being established for one year, paying a cumulative tax amount of 1 million yuan in Shenzhen, and having 10 or more employees can also purchase commercial housing in the above seven areas to meet the needs of employee housing.
Li Yujia, chief researcher at the Housing Policy Research Center of the Guangdong Provincial Urban Planning Institute, said that the relaxation of non-Shenzhen household registration restrictions is the biggest attraction of the new policy, "because Shenzhen has a large non-local population." According to the data, Shenzhen's permanent population will be 17.7901 million in 2023, a record high, an increase of 128,300 over the end of the previous year, a year-on-year increase of 0.73%, ranking first in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
He bluntly said that this time Shenzhen referred to the principle of loosening restrictions on purchases in Beijing and Shanghai, running in small steps, leaving room for improvement, and directional relief. In view of the fact that the inventory squeeze and de-escalation pressure in the peripheral areas are high, the housing prices have fallen seriously, and the reality of the city's housing price expectations and the overall expectations of the property market has been disturbed, the monolithic purchase restriction policy for foreigners has been relaxed, and their qualifications for buying houses have been reduced from 3 years to 1 year from social security, and the areas with the greatest inventory pressure and the largest decline in property market sales have been directed to the areas with the greatest inventory pressure and the largest decline in property sales.
Xiao Yong, executive director of ICR of China Real Estate Research Institute and founder of 365 Housing Review, pointed out that the new policy has made it clear that Luohu, Futian, Nanshan, and Baozhong are the core areas of Shenzhen, and the purchase restrictions are strictly restricted, and the purchase restrictions in other areas are relaxed, but the intensity is lower than expected, that is, the purchase restrictions are completely relaxed, and the relaxation of purchase restrictions in non-core areas is good for people who just need it, "According to Guangzhou's experience, the relaxation of purchase restrictions in non-core areas will promote the transfer of home buyers from the suburbs to the suburbs and the main urban area."
He Ling, president of marketing of Leyoujia, also said that the significant reduction of the threshold means that a group of new citizens will pour into non-restricted areas. According to the Shenzhen Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau's plan for pre-sale commercial housing in the second quarter of 2024, the new policy involves the adjustment of the regional new housing market, and a total of 12 residential projects and 5,664 residential units will be pre-sold in the second quarter, accounting for 72% of the total pre-sale plan, and these projects are expected to taste policy dividends.
However, the industry is mostly cautious about the effectiveness of the policy. Li Yujia told the "International Financial News" reporter that although the new deal is expected to attract foreign population, and then digest inventory, even if demand grows, under the huge inventory, superimposed on weak expectations, home buyers are not willing to increase leverage, it is difficult to promote housing prices to rebound again.
He stressed that from the perspective of purchasing power, non-residents are far inferior to the city's registered population, so the effect of this policy cannot be overestimated. If the market continues to be weak, there will be other policies to follow up, such as the complete withdrawal of non-household registration purchase restrictions, the VAT exemption period of 5 years to 2 years, etc., the key is to improve the purchasing power of the demand side, which depends on factors such as income, employment and consumption.
A person working for a real estate company in South China told reporters that the relaxation of purchase restrictions in the zoning will release part of the demand, but it is also very limited, and the target group of the relaxation of purchase restrictions is the group of people who have funds but are not qualified to buy houses, "Suppose you are a Shanghai hukou and want to invest in real estate in Shenzhen, then you will definitely not give up your Shanghai hukou to settle in Shenzhen, and the relaxation is mainly aimed at this part of the people."
Is the era of unlimited purchases coming?
Including Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen have adjusted their purchase restriction policies so far.
On April 30, the Beijing Housing and Urban-Rural Development Commission issued a relevant notice on its website, clarifying that on the basis of the implementation of the existing housing purchase restriction policy, Beijing resident families who own two houses in Beijing, Beijing single people who own one house in Beijing, non-Beijing resident families and single people who own one house in Beijing and have paid social security or individual income tax in Beijing for five consecutive years are allowed to buy a new house outside the Fifth Ring Road.
Last year, Guangzhou lifted the purchase restrictions in some areas of Huangpu, Panyu, Huadu and Baiyun districts, and lowered the social security threshold from five years to two years.
In January this year, Guangzhou further relaxed the purchase restriction of housing of more than 120 square meters, and Shanghai also followed the targeted relaxation of the housing purchase policy for single non-Shanghainese in Lingang New Area and Jinshan District, and further adjusted the housing purchase policy in Fengxian and Qingpu districts, that is, the single purchase restriction policy was cancelled, and eligible non-Shanghainese talents can buy one house in the two districts.
According to the statistics of Centaline Real Estate, in the past year or so since 2023, more than 80 purchase restrictions have been issued across the country, and the main feature is that the third and fourth-tier cities are directly "one-size-fits-all", and the second-tier and first-tier cities have taken small steps and issued policies many times.
Zhang Dawei pointed out that in the past three years, many cities have completely lifted purchase restrictions, such as Dongguan, Foshan, Nanchang, Zhengzhou, Fuzhou, Qingdao, Jinan, Xiamen, Hefei, Nanjing, Suzhou, Ningbo, Shenyang, Dalian, Wuhan, etc. At present, among the second-tier cities, only a few cities such as Hainan, Xi'an, Hangzhou, and Tianjin have not fully lifted the purchase restrictions.
Changsha property market photo by Wu Dian
According to public information, the purchase restriction began in 2010. In April of that year, the State Council issued the "Notice on Resolutely Curbing the Excessive Rise of Housing Prices in Some Cities", known as the "National Ten Articles", which proposed that "local people's governments may take temporary measures to limit the number of housing units purchased within a certain period of time according to the actual situation." ”
In the same month, Beijing issued the country's first housing purchase restriction order, introducing 12 regulatory measures, including suspending the issuance of housing loans to non-Beijing residents who cannot provide proof of tax payment or social insurance payment for more than one year; The same home-buying family can only buy a new commercial house in Beijing.
Subsequently, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other cities followed suit, and at most more than 100 cities across the country implemented purchase restriction policies. Times have changed, and the iconic policies in the history of real estate regulation have now begun to fade out of the stage.
Zhang Dawei said that if 2010 was the first year of purchase restrictions, then 2024 is the first year of the return of the era of unlimited purchases. He said that the purchase restriction was a restrictive policy introduced in the past when the property market was hot and investment, and now the market is no longer so needed.
He also pointed out that the purchase restriction policy has a limited impact on the city that has loosened the purchase restrictions, and the real estate industry is not facing a simple financial problem, there is pressure on land, sales, customers, loans and even homogeneous product competition.
"At present, the market in some cities has been significantly over-falling, and many houses are very cost-effective, but market confidence needs more policies, and the marginal benefits of policies are reduced, so first-tier cities need to introduce policies that exceed expectations to impress demand."
The bottom of the market is hovering
The sales side can see the bottoming sentiment of the property market more directly.
CRIC data shows that in April this year, the real estate market continued to operate at a low level, and the top 100 real estate companies achieved sales of 312.17 billion yuan, a decrease of 12.9% month-on-month and a year-on-year decrease of 44.9%, and the scale of monthly performance remained at a historically low level; In the first four months, the top 100 real estate companies achieved sales of 1,091.41 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 46.8%, a decrease of 0.7 percentage points.
The sales threshold of each echelon of the top 100 real estate companies has also been further lowered compared with the same period last year, and the threshold value has fallen to the lowest level in recent years. In April, the threshold of the sales amount of the top 10 real estate enterprises decreased by 57.3% year-on-year to 25.88 billion yuan, and the thresholds of the top 30 and top 50 real estate enterprises also decreased by 52.6% and 51.1% year-on-year respectively, corresponding to 6.87 billion yuan and 4.48 billion yuan. The threshold for the sales amount of the top 100 real estate enterprises was lowered by 47.7% to RMB1.85 billion.
In terms of supply, the supply and demand in April decreased slightly compared with the previous month in March, but the absolute volume was still the second highest in the year, better than the average monthly level in the first quarter: the supply of key 30 cities fell month-on-month, the transaction fell by 17% month-on-month, down 43% year-on-year, and increased by 13% compared with the average value of the first quarter; In the first four months, the cumulative year-on-year decline was 47%, and the decline narrowed by 1 percentage point.
In terms of second-hand housing, according to the data of the China Index Research Institute, the average price of second-hand housing in 100 cities across the country in April this year was 14,975 yuan / square meter, down 0.75% month-on-month and 5.38% year-on-year. Second-hand residential prices in first-tier cities fell by 0.90% month-on-month and 4.26% year-on-year; second-tier cities fell 0.78% month-on-month and 5.59% year-on-year; The third- and fourth-tier cities fell by 0.66% month-on-month and 5.59% year-on-year.
A fourth-tier city building group photo by Wu Dian
Lu Wenxi, a senior analyst at Shanghai Zhongyuan Real Estate, said frankly that after the traditional "small spring" in March, the transaction volume in April turned downward, which is also the main reason for the recent policy blowout.
Since April, the property market policies in many places have been continuously optimized, Beijing, Chengdu, Tianjin and other places have optimized the purchase restriction policy, and Shanghai, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Changsha and other cities have encouraged housing to "trade in the old for the new" and smooth the first-hand and second-hand chain; Fuzhou, Shenyang, Guiyang and other places have cancelled the lower limit of the interest rate for the first home loan, reducing the cost of buying a house and promoting the release of potential demand for home purchase.
At the end of April, the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee set the tone for the property market, continued to prevent and resolve risks as the key task of real estate work, and proposed to study and digest the stock of real estate and optimize the policy measures of incremental housing, and pay close attention to the construction of a new model of real estate development to promote the high-quality development of real estate.
For these optimization policies, Chen Wenjing, market research director of the China Index Research Institute, said that the current pressure on the adjustment of the new housing market is still there, but with the continuous coordination of macro policies and the continuous implementation of real estate policies, the new housing market is expected to improve; The second-hand housing market is expected to maintain a certain degree of activity in the short term under the "price for volume", and the current "old for new" activities in many cities are conducive to further opening up the first-hand and second-hand chain, and is also expected to have a positive impact on the new housing market.
According to the monitoring data of the China Index Research Institute, as of May 6, more than 50 cities across the country have expressed their support for housing "trade-in", mainly in two ways: one is that real estate enterprises and joint brokerage agencies give priority to the sale of old houses, and if the old houses are sold within a certain period of time, they will buy new houses according to the process; Second, developers or state-owned assets platforms acquire old houses, and the sales proceeds are used to purchase designated new housing projects, which is also the mainstream of housing "trade-in" since this year.
As for the results of this series of "combination punches", we can only wait for time to answer.