The property market policies in many places are "new", and the real estate "toolbox" has increased options

In recent years, Cengong County, Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, Guizhou Province, has vigorously built community service centers, elderly activity centers, libraries, cultural squares and other places in the construction of new urbanization to improve the people's sense of happiness, security and satisfaction. The picture shows community residents exercising in Daping Tongxin Community, Dayou Town, Cengong County. Xinhua

Reporter of China Development and Reform News | Ji Xiaoli

Recently, the implementation of 13 years of Beijing's housing purchase restriction policy ushered in the first adjustment, Shenzhen also relaxed the purchase restrictions, Hangzhou, Xi'an announced the full cancellation of housing purchase restrictions, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Wuhan, Shenyang and other cities can settle down when buying houses.

With the intensive introduction of loosening policies, has there been a major change in the relationship between supply and demand in the domestic real estate market? How to build a new model of real estate development in the future?

New policies for the easing of the property market in various places have been released

On April 30, Beijing issued the "Notice on Optimizing and Adjusting the City's Housing Purchase Restriction Policy", relaxing the housing purchase restriction in areas outside the Fifth Ring Road for the first time in 13 years. After the new policy, households with household registration in Beijing can purchase up to three houses, and single people and families who meet the five-year social security can purchase up to two houses. Many experts predict that the suburbs with relatively large inventory pressure will take the lead in adjusting policies such as purchase restrictions and loan restrictions. At present, the "price for volume" in Beijing's property market is still the logic of the upward trend of second-hand housing transactions, and many housing prices have fallen back to 2016.

In April ~ May, Nanjing issued more than 10 new real estate policies. The Notice on Matters Concerning the Settlement of Legal and Stable Domiciles issued by the Nanjing Municipal Public Security Bureau mentions that the conditions for settlement will be further relaxed, and non-Nanjing household registration persons who have a legal and stable residence in Nanjing and actually reside in Nanjing can directly apply for settlement. After a lapse of 6 years, Nanjing has restarted the policy of buying houses and settling down in order to attract more foreign population. Nanjing has also issued a new policy on the integration of provident fund housing loans and withdrawals within the Nanjing metropolitan area, and the expropriated person can get up to 15% of the house purchase incentive for purchasing a house with a house ticket; The interest rate on the first home loan has been lowered again, and the interest rate of some banks after the concession is only 3.45%.

Recently, the transaction volume of Nanjing's second-hand housing market has maintained an upward trend. According to the data of the Nanjing Research Institute of I Love My Home, the transaction volume of second-hand houses in Nanjing in April was 10,195 units (including Gaochun and Lishui), up 19.1% month-on-month, rising for two consecutive months, and the transaction volume also hit a new monthly high this year, second only to Chengdu and Beijing in the country.

On May 9, Hangzhou issued a new policy for the property market, completely canceling housing purchase restrictions and no longer reviewing house purchase qualifications. At the same time, non-registered persons who have obtained legal property rights in Hangzhou can apply for settlement. He Chenyu, deputy director of the Real Estate Industry Development Department of the Hangzhou Municipal Housing and Housing Management Bureau, said that within the existing framework of points settlement, it is planned to significantly increase the weight of the allocation of self-owned housing, and the relevant provisions of the implementation rules will prevail in the future. Zhang Dawei, chief analyst of Centaline Real Estate, believes that this means that the policy of "suspending urban house purchases" that began in September 2016 has officially withdrawn from the stage, and there is no previous requirement on the total price and area of house purchases.

On the same day, an insider of Binjiang Group posted a table on social media, listing 13 properties for sale and upcoming projects, with an average price of 29,000 yuan ~ 65,000 yuan / square meter. Shouwanglan Cui Mansion in the Dongzhou sector of Fuyang, Hangzhou, publicly announced that it would sell houses according to the "area of the suite" after the purchase restriction was fully lifted, becoming the first real estate in Hangzhou to be priced according to the area of the suite. Organized out-of-town buyers have also appeared in popular real estate projects in Hangzhou recently. The Chen'an Moon Printing Project in the Canal New City Sector of Gongshu District, Hangzhou has ushered in a large number of tenants from Ningbo, Shaoxing, Jiaxing and other places.

According to CRIC real estate data, on May 6~12, the volume and price of Hangzhou's new housing market rose, and a total of 984 commercial residences were traded in the city, an increase of 43% month-on-month; The average transaction price was 33,151 yuan / square meter, up 2% from the previous month. In recent days, Hangzhou's Gongshu District has become an area with a high increase in housing prices in the city, with housing prices rising from 33,000 yuan/square meter to 53,400 yuan/square meter. During the period of April 29th ~ May 5th, Hangzhou's new housing market is still in a state of both volume and price.

Cities in the Pearl River Delta have also joined the ranks of the New Deal. The core urban areas of Guangzhou and Foshan are less than 30 kilometers apart. Li Yujia, chief researcher of the Housing Policy Research Center of Guangdong Provincial Institute of Urban and Rural Planning and Design, said that in the downward cycle of the property market, the threshold for entering the household in the peripheral areas of Guangzhou has been greatly reduced, and the college degree can be entered into the household, and Guangzhou has basically withdrawn from the purchase restriction policy, and the threshold for entering the household has been reduced, which has a big impact on the property market in Foshan.

On May 13, Foshan announced a new real estate policy, in addition to policies such as buying houses and settling down to vigorously attract non-local residents into the market, but also discovered other new highlights. For example, in terms of optimizing the calculation rules of floor area ratio, the upper limit of the "half" volume calculation area of the balcony in the residential suite for newly transferred residential land has been increased from 18% to 20% of the floor area in the suite, and the requirement that the height difference between the bay window sill and the ground is less than 0.45 meters has been cancelled. Experts pointed out that this will improve the efficiency, quality and market competitiveness of newly built commercial housing, which is equivalent to reducing the cost of buying a house in disguise, which is conducive to accelerating the release of local improvement demand. However, this may lead to projects that have been on the market before, but do not have the advantage of plot ratio or pooling, face pressure on the de-capitalization of the funds from the sale of properties.

Foshan also encourages and supports the "old for new" housing, encourages real estate enterprises to carry out activities of replacing existing real estate with new houses, and increases financing support for local state-owned enterprises to purchase market stock real estate for affordable housing, rental housing, and talent housing; Those who sell their own homes this year and next year and re-buy them within one year after the sale will receive a tax rebate on the sale of their homes. In the first four months, the transaction volume of new houses in Foshan was 1.291 million square meters, which was relatively flat. The introduction of the new policy may help stimulate more potential demand and accelerate the current decentralization of Foshan's property market.

Huizhou's new policy is even stronger. Huizhou proposes that auxiliary housing and supporting facilities handed over to the government free of charge should be borne by the developer or the government, and will not be included in the shared area, which has improved the housing efficiency of the owners. Huizhou also encourages the construction of high-quality residential buildings, using high-ceilinged, split-level balconies to create residential sky gardens, and this part is not included in the floor area ratio and property area. In the past, "stealing area" was a "sidekick" or a violation, but now it is standardized, which helps to enhance the competitiveness of industry products.

However, many industry experts remind that the recovery of the property market is not an immediate result of the continuous relaxation of policies, and if the market is always in a downward range, consumers will inevitably remain cautious. Song Hongwei, research director of Tongce Research Institute, analyzed that the background of the comprehensive abolition of restrictive policies is that the supply and demand relationship in the mainland real estate market has undergone major changes. The policy will have a certain effect on boosting the local property market and reduce the pressure on the market, but the timeliness is short. He judged that the current mainland real estate market has not yet bottomed out, and it will still face downward pressure in 2024.

Before and after the "May Day", the property market in many places rebounded

During the "May Day" holiday, Beijing's property market coincided with the relaxation of purchase restrictions in areas outside the Fifth Ring Road, and a series of policies in the early stage such as down payment ratio and mortgage interest rate adjustment were superimposed, and the boosting effect was initially effective. According to the data, the transaction area of new houses in Beijing during the "May Day" holiday was 16,500 square meters, with an average daily transaction area of 3,300 square meters, an increase of 19% over the same period in 2023 and 12% over the same period in 2019.

Similar to Beijing's property market policy adjustment, on April 28, Chengdu's seven-and-a-half-year-old purchase restriction policy was completely canceled. According to CRIC statistics, about 6 percent of new housing projects in Chengdu during the "May Day" holiday saw an increase in visits; In terms of transaction volume, the transaction volume of 35% of local projects increased, an increase of about 5%~10%, and the transaction volume of many projects remained stable. Compared with the price of nearly 30,000 yuan per square meter in Suzhou, Hangzhou and other cities, the average price of new houses in Chengdu is less than 20,000 yuan, which is quite cost-effective and has growth potential.

During this year's "May Day" period, Beijing and Chengdu were among the few cities with positive transaction performance. According to the data of the China Index Institute, the average daily sales area of new houses in 22 representative cities during this year's "May Day" holiday is still in a year-on-year decline, and consumers are still in a wait-and-see mood. However, after the end of the "May Day" holiday, the transaction volume of the property market in many places rebounded sharply month-on-month.

In terms of new housing, according to the monitoring data of Zhuge Data Research Center, on May 6~12, the transaction volume of newly built commercial housing in 15 key cities was 14,685 units, an increase of 74.24% month-on-month and a year-on-year decrease of 2.51%. Among them, the transaction volume of new homes in cities that have recently ushered in favorable policies has increased significantly. For example, Hangzhou, but judging from the current online transaction data, there is still a lot of room for the transaction volume of new houses to stabilize and rise.

According to the monitoring data of Zhuge Data Research Center, in the same week, the transaction volume of second-hand residential buildings in the key 10 cities was 19,379 units, up 184.9% month-on-month and positive year-on-year. Among them, Chengdu led the month-on-month increase in transaction volume, with 5,681 second-hand residential transactions. In addition, the transaction volume of second-hand houses in Shenzhen this week not only rose sharply month-on-month, but also exceeded the pre-holiday level by about 10%. Yan Yuejin, research director of the E-House Research Institute, believes that the sharp rebound in weekly transaction volume from the previous month shows that the real estate market still has large potential demand.

As of May 9, a total of more than 50 cities across the country have relaxed the restrictions on real estate purchases, and 23 cities have completely canceled purchase restrictions. Making full use of the idle stock of housing in the city can not only avoid increasing excess capacity, but also provide convenience for citizens who have rigid and improved housing needs, which is the meaning of the implementation of the "overall study and digestion of stock housing and optimization of policy measures for incremental housing".

The recent frequent adjustment of real estate policies can really reverse market expectations is a topic of concern for all parties. After several rounds of real estate regulation, investors are more rational and prudent about the investment attributes of real estate, the government is more familiar with the laws of the development of the real estate industry, and there are more options in the "toolbox" for regulating the real estate market.

For example, in the past few years, talent settlement and point settlement have been the mainstream methods, mainly related to academic qualifications, social security and age; The settlement of points is to comprehensively score various indicators, which is complex. The resumption of home purchase and settlement without relevant restrictions has greatly lowered the threshold for entry. With a hukou, you can enjoy the right to compulsory education and the allocation of other public resources. For hotspot cities with concentrated migrant populations, such as Nanjing, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Xi'an, etc., it is still relatively difficult for ordinary migrant workers to enter the household, but many of them do not earn lower than the average college graduate, and they very much hope that their children can receive education in the city where they are employed.

On April 16, Sheng Laiyun, deputy director of the National Bureau of Statistics, mentioned at a press conference of the State Council Information Office that the urbanization rate of the mainland's permanent population in 2023 will be 66.2%, but the urbanization rate is less than 50% in terms of registered population, and there are still 297 million migrant workers in the city who are not fully urbanized.

Many industry experts believe that completely breaking the shackles of the urban and rural household registration system and significantly increasing the urbanization ratio may be the best solution to resolve the real estate dilemma, which can not only help the industry get out of difficulties, but also promote the sustainable growth of China's economy. In the future, with the withdrawal of purchase restrictions and the widespread popularization of house purchases, there will be a "war for people" between cities. The competitiveness of the city includes resources such as employment, education, and medical care, as well as the completeness of housing and community living facilities. The lowering of the settlement threshold in major cities will have a far-reaching impact on the future development of cities, the adjustment of population structure and industrial structure, and the improvement of comprehensive competitiveness of cities.

Promote the construction of a new model of real estate development

On April 30, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held a meeting, emphasizing the need 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 the construction of a new model of real estate development to promote the high-quality development of real estate.

On May 10, the central bank released the report on the implementation of China's monetary policy in the first quarter of 2024, mentioning that it will give full play to the guiding role of monetary and credit policies, and for the real estate market, it is required to study and digest the stock of real estate and optimize the policy measures for incremental housing, strengthen the financial guarantee for affordable housing and urban village transformation, and promote the construction of a new model of real estate development.

Chai Qiang, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and president of the China Institute of Real Estate Appraisers and Real Estate Agents, believes that "incremental housing" mainly refers to new housing planned and built in the future, including commercial housing and affordable housing; "Optimization" is to improve the housing supply system of "market + security", and to build "good houses" to meet the people's demand for high-quality housing. For example, under the premise of complying with planning and use control, non-residential buildings such as commercial and office buildings are allowed to adjust the use of stock real estate according to market demand; Encourage housing rental enterprises to purchase or renovate existing real estate for rental housing; If the total supply of local housing exceeds demand and the government has financial resources, it may purchase part of the stock of housing for affordable housing and housing for demolition and resettlement.

Some cities are already taking action. On May 3, the Shanghai Real Estate Industry Association and the Shanghai Real Estate Brokerage Industry Association jointly issued an initiative to launch the "old for new" activity of commercial housing in Shanghai. Among them, there are more than 20 real estate development enterprises and more than 30 projects participating in the first batch of "trade-in" initiative, mainly distributed in Jiading District, Songjiang District, Qingpu District, Fengxian District and Lingang District. The real estate development enterprises participating in the event promise that if the old house is not successfully sold within a certain period of time, the residents who buy the house can unconditionally check out and get a refund; The real estate brokerage agency promised to "promote and give priority to the sale of the old houses of the residents".

On May 11, Nanjing issued the "Implementation Plan for the Planning and Construction of Affordable Housing in Nanjing", which clarified that the stock of housing can be appropriately reconstructed or purchased for use as affordable housing, and the idle land and houses can be revitalized; Priority is given to the most difficult wage earner groups, and then gradually expanded to cover the entire wage earner group. However, affordable housing shall not be changed into commercial housing in any form and enter the market, and each applicant family can only purchase one set of affordable housing.

On May 11, the Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development issued the "2024 Beijing Housing Development Annual Plan" and proposed that Beijing will supply housing land in a stable and orderly manner, and the 2024 annual plan will arrange 1,060 hectares of various types of housing land, tilting towards key development spaces such as key functional areas, around rail stations, and southern areas, so as to promote job-housing balance, industry-city integration, and livability and business.

Yu Xiaofen, dean of the China Housing and Real Estate Research Institute of Zhejiang University of Technology, believes that to build a new model of real estate development, it is necessary to promote the adaptation of the relationship between population, housing, land and capital, and avoid imbalances and ups and downs in market supply and demand. In terms of supply system, improve the housing supply system of "market + security"; In terms of sales methods, the implementation of existing house sales; In terms of housing management, it is necessary to speed up the establishment of urban housing physical examination, housing pension, housing insurance and other systems, and establish a housing life cycle management system; On the path, it is necessary to establish a guarantee mechanism for a new model of real estate development, including land use system, fiscal and taxation system, financial system, etc., to promote the high-quality development of real estate.