In recent times, as there has been more and more news of falling house prices, there has been more debate about buying a house and not buying a house. People who are bullish on house prices believe that if they do not buy a house when house prices are low this year and next, people will not be able to afford to buy a house after 5 years of rising house prices. For those who are bearish on house prices, they believe that buying a house now is a high takeover, and it is best to wait and see the trend of house prices this year and next year. So, should we buy a house this year and next? If you don't buy a house, will you be even more unaffordable after 5 years? For this problem, Wang Shi issued a paper at the beginning of this year that in the case of the global central bank's large-scale release of water, inflation will come, and the price of bulk commodities may be affected. Although Wang Shi did not explicitly say "whether the house will increase in price", Wang Shi carefully matched several pictures, including pictures of pork and real estate. Therefore, many people believe that this is Wang Shi's explicit statement that the house price will rise because of the rise in the price of building materials.
So, will house prices really rise with the increase in costs as Wang Shi predicted? In the author's opinion, the problem of rising and falling house prices cannot be seen only from the cost side, because the cost rises, and the price of commodities does not necessarily rise. For this problem, we still have to analyze and judge it in combination with the specific environment of the current property market.
First, the rise in house prices needs the support of the population, that is, the relationship between supply and demand determines the rise or fall of house prices
As we all know, in the past 20 years, the house prices in our country have always been how much they have risen and fallen, almost all the way up, all the way to a new high, resulting in many people's impression of house prices is only up and not down. In fact, the reason why house prices can continue to rise, on the one hand, is because the construction cost of the house continues to rise, on the other hand, people's demand for housing has been very large, it can be said that this is the root cause of the continuous rise in house prices. According to statistics, in 1978, the per capita housing area of urban residents in the country was only 3.6 square meters, and there were still more than 8 million housing vacancies in the city at that time, which shows that the housing resources of our country were indeed very scarce at that time. After the full commercialization of housing in 1998, people's demand for housing was suddenly released, and housing resources were in short supply in a short period of time, resulting in a sharp rise in house prices.
The first housing reform in 1998 not only released people's demand for housing, but also promoted the development of the real estate industry. Since 1998, our country's real estate industry has entered a period of rapid development, a large number of houses have been built, and the city has expanded circle after circle. However, at the same time that a large number of commercial housing has been built, due to the reasons of urbanization construction, a large number of rural people have flowed into the city, and a huge demand for housing has also been formed. Therefore, although the real estate industry has developed rapidly, in the past many years, our country's housing resources have been in short supply, and house prices have continued to rise under the relationship of short supply. Coupled with the push of speculators, the speed of house price rise is even faster, far more than the speed of wage increases for many people.
However, with the rapid development of our country's real estate industry for more than 20 years, the current shortage of housing resources has been solved. According to the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics and the Central Bank, at present, more than 96.86% of urban households in our country already have houses, with an average of 1.5 sets per household, and the per capita housing area of urban residents has exceeded 40 square meters. In addition, according to the data of Qipu, by the end of 2020, the urbanization rate of the national permanent population will be 63.89%, and the urbanization rate of the household registration population will be 44%. From the calculations, it can be concluded that at present, only the houses owned by households with urban household registration are enough for all the people in the city to live. It can be seen that at present, the housing resources in our country are not only no longer in short supply, but there has been a surplus phenomenon.
At present, in the context of the continuous tightening of the property market regulation and control policy, the problem of excess housing resources has been slowly exposed. Especially after many investors are not optimistic about the trend of house prices, they not only do not continue to invest in real estate, but also begin to sell properties on a large scale. According to statistics, the number of second-hand housing listings nationwide surged by 86% month-on-month in March this year, almost doubling compared with February. And since March this year, the number of second-hand housing listings in the country has been surging continuously, and while the number of second-hand housing listings has been rising, the transaction volume of second-hand houses is decreasing, which shows that second-hand houses have become more and more difficult to sell. At present, the number of second-hand housing listings in Beijing, Zhengzhou, Harbin, Nanjing, Wuhan, Chengdu and Chongqing has exceeded 100,000 sets, of which many cities have more than 150,000 second-hand houses listed, and the number of second-hand houses listed in Chongqing (only in urban areas) has exceeded 200,000 sets.
Like second-hand housing, the current new housing market is also facing the same problem, by the end of 2020, the inventory of newly built commercial housing in 100 cities across the country has exceeded 510 million square meters. More importantly, like second-hand houses, new houses have become more and more difficult to sell while the inventory is rising. According to statistics, since July this year, the transaction volume of newly built commercial housing in the country has declined year-on-year, even in the peak season of the property market in September, the transaction volume of newly built commercial housing has dropped significantly. Although the property sales data for October has not yet been counted, the year-on-year decline has basically become a foregone conclusion. It can be seen that at present, whether it is the new housing market or the second-hand housing market, there has been a phenomenon of oversupply, and the phenomenon of excess housing resources has been highlighted.
Second, the rise in house prices needs the support of funds, and the current flow of funds into the property market has been restricted
The rise in house prices is not rising out of thin air, but needs a lot of funds to support, it can be said that the amount of funds flowing into the property market directly determines how much house prices rise. However, for the property market, the biggest problem now is the shortage of funds, resulting in many housing companies have a tight capital chain.
In fact, as early as the second half of 2019, the central bank began to strictly investigate the illegal funds flowing into the property market, and as soon as this policy came out, it directly suppressed the then hot property market, and even directly led to problems in the capital chain of some housing enterprises. In 2020, the central bank and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development issued new regulations on "three red lines", which raised the property market to the surface of debt removal, and forced housing enterprises to reduce their debt ratios through "three red lines". By 2021, the CBRC will directly issue a "loan restriction order" to limit the scale of funds flowing into the real estate industry, and since then, the funds flowing into real estate have been within the control of the state.
Since June this year, the effect of a series of national credit tightening policies has been revealed, and the entire real estate industry has begun to lack money, and many housing companies can only choose to reduce prices and promote promotions in order to withdraw funds, and return funds by selling houses. The same is true of the second-hand housing market, affected by the "loan restriction order", the owners of second-hand housing loans have been greatly affected, because many banks have stopped the second-hand housing loan business because of insufficient amount of housing loans. Second-hand housing loans are not good, which greatly improves the threshold for second-hand houses to buy, and at the same time greatly reduces the liquidity of second-hand houses. Therefore, it can be seen that through the tightening policy of credit, the trend of house prices can be directly regulated. The current continuous tightening of credit has deprived house prices of the momentum to continue to rise.
From the above 2 points, it can be seen that supply and demand and funds are the fundamental factors that drive the rise in house prices, and the rise in construction costs does not necessarily promote the rise in house prices. Therefore, the trend of a city's future housing prices cannot be simply viewed from the perspective of construction costs, but also combined with the development potential of the city and the supply and demand relationship of the property market. For example, first- and second-tier hot cities, these cities have great potential for future development, and there is currently a large number of people flowing into these cities every year, so with the inflow of population, the demand for housing in these cities will continue to increase, and housing prices will continue to rise. On the contrary, for the third- and fourth-tier cities that continue to lose population, as the population decreases, the demand for housing will also decrease accordingly, and housing prices will slowly decrease as a result.
Of course, in today's property market regulation environment, the overall trend of house prices will be very stable, even if the future house prices will continue to rise in the first and second-tier hot cities, house prices will also rise steadily. Therefore, even if you don't buy a house this year and next year, the gap between house prices will not be too big after 5 years, and you don't have to worry about the situation of "not being able to afford a house".