Yesterday, the fifth batch of land auctions in Hangzhou was also the first land auction after Hangzhou's full liberalization of purchase restrictions, and the results were unsatisfactory, with all plots traded at zero premium.
In fact, at the time of the last batch of land transfers, some people in the industry believed that the sluggish performance of Hangzhou's land auctions may continue, because the quality of this batch of listed land is very poor, so it is not surprising that the popularity is not high.
However, what is surprising is that C&D has taken land in Hangzhou again!
01
Since the end of March, in less than two months, C&D has contributed 15.821 billion yuan to the land market in Hangzhou!
Let's first review the "highlight" moment of C&D's local auction in Hangzhou:
On March 29, in the second batch of land transfers in Hangzhou this year, C&D won the Taoyuan unit plot at a reserve price of 1.85 billion yuan.
On April 16, in the third batch of land auctions in Hangzhou this year, C&D won the 2 Zhijiang plots that were returned by ants at the reserve price, spending a total of 2.838 billion yuan.
For example, a week before the land transfer, at the press conference of the 2024 Land Promotion Conference (Land Reading Manual) in West Lake District, it was the relevant person in charge of C&D who sat in the first row of the guest seat, and the top leader of West Lake District went to C&D headquarters when he went to Fujian Province for inspection.
In addition to the Zhijiang plot, in this batch of land, C&D also cooperated with Hangzhou Trading Investment to bid for the Hangzhou Yuncheng plot at a reserve price of 3.376 billion yuan.
Then, on April 29, in the fourth batch of land auctions in Hangzhou, C&D once again won the giant plot of the Future Science and Technology City at the reserve price, costing 8.495 billion yuan.
On May 14, C&D and Hangzhou Dongfang Bay New Town Construction won the low-density land plot of Hangzhou Dongfang Bay New Town at a reserve price of 1.9 billion yuan.
So far, C&D's land acquisition in Hangzhou has reached 15.8 billion yuan. In fact, in the first four months of this year, C&D's total land acquisition in the country was 18.3 billion yuan.
In other words, C&D is almost pouring the strength of the whole group into Hangzhou this year.
The speed and intensity of C&D's land acquisition in Hangzhou cannot but be astonishing.
As early as 2021, C&D was still a little-known small role in Hangzhou's land market, and it couldn't even rank among the top ten in Hangzhou's land acquisition amount that year;
But in 2022, C&D's land acquisition in Hangzhou will soar to the fourth place, 8.1 billion yuan;
In 2023, C&D will continue to increase its efforts to acquire land in Hangzhou, with an annual land acquisition amount of 10 billion yuan, ranking third, second only to Greentown and Binjiang;
This year, in the first four months alone, C&D spent 14.9 billion yuan in Hangzhou, and C&D's land acquisition in the first four months was 18.3 billion yuan.
C&D is this going to be the second Binjiang?
02
Under a shallow analysis, the reasons why C&D invested heavily in Hangzhou.
On the one hand, it is indeed a city dividend.
Since 2016, Hangzhou has begun to develop rapidly, G20, Asian Games and other international events have been held, the city's economy has taken off, and Hangzhou has also become the hottest city in China's local auctions, and major real estate companies are vying to enter.
Hangzhou has become a fertile ground for the development of real estate enterprises, the most typical is Binjiang, when private real estate enterprises are suffering from a financial crisis, Binjiang not only survived but also lived very well, the main reason is the heavy layout of Hangzhou.
Boss Qi of Binjiang has also expressed in public countless times: Hangzhou is the best market in the country.
It may be that Binjiang has been too bright in recent years, so that the industry has ignored that there are still some foreign real estate companies in Hangzhou that are also growing wildly, and C&D is one of them.
C&D first entered Hangzhou in 2016.
At that time, Hangzhou was one of the cities with the most fierce competition in the national land auction market, so fierce that it was even possible to remove the "one", and most of the people who created these fierce scenes were foreign real estate companies such as C&D, Sunac, and Rongxin.
However, with the three red lines and the risk of private enterprises, the most active big players in Hangzhou's local auction market, such as Sunac, Rongxin, Xiangsheng, and Sunshine City, were forced to withdraw from the table.
As a result, C&D, which has the status of Xiamen state-owned assets, has become the most conspicuous "foreigner" in Hangzhou's property market.
How conspicuous is it?
In 2022, C&D will squeeze into the top 20 in Hangzhou for the first time with sales of nearly 9 billion yuan.
And by 2023, C&D will have rushed to the TOP3 on the sales list in Hangzhou. Its sales performance of 13.567 billion yuan in Hangzhou is second only to Hangzhou's two local kings - Binjiang and Greentown.
In the first four months of this year, C&D was still firmly in the top 3 sales in Hangzhou.
C&D has the ability and financial resources, and has enthusiasm for Hangzhou, so it has naturally become the sweetheart of the local government in Hangzhou.
Perhaps, this is also one of the reasons why C&D has a heavy position in Hangzhou:
C&D has become the new supporter of Hangzhou's land market.
Before C&D, in addition to the local urban investment, Binjiang was the land market.
Even in Hangzhou, Binjiang is often seen as Hangzhou's second urban investment.
In the past, Binjiang dared to support the government, but also because of the cooperation with the government, both sides reciprocal, some plots can still be done.
However, now that the market continues to decline, Binjiang is becoming more and more cautious. This year, Binjiang's attitude in acquiring land is that unless it is a particularly high-quality plot, it will not dare to do anything else.
In contrast, C&D is more "bold".
03
Last week, Hangzhou announced the full relaxation of housing purchase restrictions, taking another lead on the policy side.
Behind the cancellation of purchase restrictions is the sluggish performance of Hangzhou's new housing market. According to the monitoring data of the China Index Institute, from January to April 2024, the transaction volume of new houses in Hangzhou was only 1.883 million square meters, a year-on-year decrease of 57.2%; And the popularity of new houses continued to decline, with the transaction area in April falling by 5% month-on-month, and more than 60% of the newly opened projects were fluctuating.
Fortunately, the policy stimulus effect was immediate, real estate stocks were excited for several trading days, and the market feedback was also good.
However, after so many rounds of policy stimulus, everyone has also formed a consensus - the policy is useful, the effect is short-lived, and the market is difficult to improve.
With such an environment, can the performance of real estate companies be good?
Obviously, Binjiang's initiative to step on the brakes is actually very revealing. In fact, even C&D's own projects, whether they are Taoyuan, Zhijiang, Cloud City, or Future Science and Technology City, are not so easy to sell.
However, judging from the fact that 15.8 billion yuan of land has been taken in Hangzhou in just two months, C&D, the "outsider" in Hangzhou, does not seem to be particularly concerned about the current ups and downs of the Hangzhou property market, but wants to become the most staunch defender of the Hangzhou property market, even firmer than Greentown and Binjiang.
In the eyes of the outside world, as a native of Xiamen, it is indeed somewhat unusual to be firmly optimistic about another city and invest most of its money and energy in it.
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