At the end of April, the area of commercial housing for sale was 745.53 million square meters, a year-on-year increase of 15.7%. Among them, the area of residential buildings for sale increased by 24.5%. It is certain that in the future, more cities will buy the stock of commercial housing and adopt different mechanisms to revitalize the market around the real needs of local residents.
China Housing Daily reporter Xu Qian reported from Beijing
May 17, 2024 is destined to be the most colorful day in the history of China's real estate.
He Lifeng, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Vice Premier of the State Council, stressed at the meeting that it is necessary to conscientiously study and comprehend the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech, thoroughly implement the deployment of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, deeply understand the people's nature and politics of real estate work, continue to adhere to the city-specific policies, do a good job in the risk disposal of unfinished commercial housing, and solidly promote the key work of ensuring the delivery of housing and digesting the stock of commercial housing.
Subsequently, the People's Bank of China issued a notice on adjusting the minimum down payment ratio of personal housing loans and the interest rate policy of commercial personal housing loans: for resident families who take out loans to purchase commercial housing, the minimum down payment ratio of commercial personal housing loans for the first house is adjusted to not less than 15%, and the minimum down payment ratio of commercial personal housing loans for second houses is adjusted to not less than 25%. In terms of the interest rate of commercial personal housing loans, the lower limit of the interest rate policy for commercial personal housing loans for the first and second houses at the national level will be abolished.
In the afternoon of the same day, the Information Office of the State Council held a regular policy briefing, at which the heads of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the People's Bank of China and the State Financial Supervision and Administration will explain the latest policy deployment of real estate. Introduce the relevant situation of supporting policies for ensuring the delivery of housing.
At present, the property market is still in deep adjustment. On the same day, the National Bureau of Statistics released the basic situation of the national real estate market in January ~ April 2024, and the indicators of real estate investment, sales and financing continued to decline.
"Judging from the main data in the real estate field in April, real estate continues to be in a period of adjustment." Liu Aihua, spokesman of the National Bureau of Statistics, chief economist and director of the Department of Comprehensive Statistics of the National Economy, said at a press conference held by the bureau on the same day that in the next stage, 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 the construction of a new model of real estate development to promote the high-quality development of real estate.
From the perspective of investment, in 1~4 months, the national real estate development investment was 3,092.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 9.8%, and the decline was 0.3 percentage points larger than that in 1~3 months.
From the sales side, in January ~ April, the sales area of new commercial housing was 292.52 million square meters, down 20.2% year-on-year, 0.8 percentage points larger than that in January ~ March, and the sales of new commercial housing were 2,806.7 billion yuan, down 28.3% year-on-year, and the decline rate narrowed by 2.4 percentage points.
From the perspective of housing prices, in 1~4 months, the average sales price of commercial housing in the country was 9,595 yuan / square meter, up 1.8% month-on-month, but the year-on-year decline was still as high as 9.2%. There has been a certain increase in housing prices across the country, which in the eyes of industry insiders, mainly due to the good sales of high-end projects in some cities, which objectively brings the appearance of stable housing prices, but the foundation is not solid.
The new construction and investment willingness of real estate enterprises are at a low point. In 1~4 months, the construction area of real estate enterprises decreased by 10.8% year-on-year; The area of new real estate starts fell by 24.6% year-on-year, and this indicator has been declining for 31 consecutive months.
The capital side is also not optimistic. In 1~4 months, the funds in place for real estate enterprises were 3,403.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 24.9%, and the decline rate was 1.1 percentage points narrower than that in 1~3 months. The financing environment for real estate enterprises is still weak.
At the end of April, the area of commercial housing for sale was 745.53 million square meters, a year-on-year increase of 15.7%. Among them, the area of residential buildings for sale increased by 24.5%. The task of destocking has been further increased.
From the perspective of the source of funds in place for real estate enterprises in April, personal mortgage loans, deposits and advance receipts declined the most, down 39.7% and 37.2% year-on-year respectively, these two indicators are the main components of sales collection, accounting for more than 40% of the source of funds for real estate enterprises, providing the main hematopoietic function for developers. The sharp decline in these two indicators shows that residents' willingness to buy houses is still low.
Central bank data also confirms this trend. In April, new RMB loans amounted to 730 billion yuan, an increase of 11.2 billion yuan year-on-year; However, the scale of social financing decreased by 198.7 billion yuan, showing a rare negative growth. The lack of physical credit demand has been reaffirmed. Among the RMB loans, household loans decreased by 516.6 billion yuan, of which short-term household loans decreased by 351.8 billion yuan and medium and long-term loans decreased by 166.6 billion yuan. Among them, the medium and long-term loans of the household sector are mainly affected by two factors, new issuance (housing loans) and repayment, and the latest two indicators are declining.
In April, the new scale of corporate bond financing was only 49.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 244.7 billion yuan, behind the strict restrictions on new financing of urban investment and the difficulty of real estate bond issuance.
CRIC data also shows that in April, the total financing of 65 typical real estate companies was 28.007 billion yuan, a decrease of 29.5% month-on-month and a year-on-year decrease of 56.5%; The total financing in the first four months was 124.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 58%. Among them, the amount of bonds issued by central enterprises and state-owned enterprises accounts for the majority.
At the same time, 2024 will still be at the peak of debt repayment of real estate enterprises, and the pressure of debt repayment and the demand for debt replacement are large. According to agency data, the first and second quarters of 2024 will still be the peak of maturity, with a maturity scale of more than 150 billion yuan, and the debt pressure of real estate enterprises in the first half of the year is still large.
"Within a month, Dongyuan and Agile defaulted on their debts, reflecting the operational difficulties faced by real estate companies with weak second-, third- and fourth-tier city layouts in the context of over-falling markets. Previously, most of the defaulting real estate companies were also very closely related to the above factors. Therefore, it is suggested that strong second-tier cities should have more vigorous rescue policies to activate the demand for the property market and reduce the inventory of the property market as soon as possible. Only when the fundamentals of the property market in these cities improve, can the overall property market be truly improved, the operating pressure of enterprises will be reduced, and it is possible to reduce the risk of corporate default. Zhang Hongwei, founder of Jingjian Consulting, suggested.
The meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held on April 30 proposed to study the policy measures to digest the stock of real estate and optimize the incremental housing. Since then, some first-tier and new first-tier cities have successively optimized the purchase restriction policy, such as Beijing, Shenzhen and Tianjin have relaxed the purchase restriction policy, and Hangzhou and Xi'an have relaxed the purchase restriction policy. The bottom of the industry policy has emerged, but it still takes time to transmit it to the investment and sales side.
According to the statistics of the China Index Institute, the recent policy effect of some cities has been slightly revealed, and the number of visits to new housing projects and second-hand housing in core cities have increased, especially the cancellation of purchase restrictions in the core areas of Hangzhou and Chengdu has had a positive impact on the improvement of regional market activity.
What the market expects is that this high-level blockbuster meeting will be held on May 17, and the policy measures to digest the stock of real estate and optimize the incremental housing will be quickly and forcefully introduced.
It is reported that the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the State Administration of Financial Supervision and Administration, state-owned commercial banks and other ministries and agencies have respectively transferred their own key personnel in the real estate field to set up a joint working group; The scope of "guaranteed delivery of housing" will be further expanded, and the method of acquiring stock housing is also in the pipeline. Judging from the plans disclosed by various localities and the results of the pilot, it is certain that in the future, there will be more cities with state-owned assets to purchase stock houses, and adopt different mechanisms to revitalize the stock housing and rental market around the real needs of local residents.
This has a direct positive effect on real estate, and the stock market is the first to react positively. On the morning of May 17, Hong Kong real estate stocks continued to be strong. Among them, Jingrui Holdings rose by more than 85%, Sunshine 100 China rose by more than 28%, and DXN China and Fantasia Holdings both rose by more than 20%.
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