Reporter Cao Zheng
In Fenghuiyuan Community, Xicheng District, there are more than a dozen low-rise residential buildings, all of which are more than 20 years old, and their exterior walls have faded. But this community has always been favored by second-hand housing intermediaries. A set of more than 50 square meters of "old and broken small" can cost tens of millions of dollars.
"The house in Fenghuiyuan has dropped by 1 million. Would you consider taking a look?" The broker, Chang Wei, had just been hung up by the client at the nearest intermediary store, and his face couldn't hide.
According to the new regulations issued by the Xicheng District Education Commission at the end of April this year, school-age children whose household registration has moved from other districts of the city to Xicheng District after July 31 will no longer correspond to registration and enrollment in the designated school when applying for elementary school, and all will be divided by multiple schools. Enrollment in the school district or adjacent school district. With the new enrollment policy coming into effect, Chang Weizheng, who has worked as a broker in Financial Street for 10 years, experienced the most shocking moment in his career: the transaction volume of many popular districts was cut in half, and the price of "the most powerful school district" was no longer strong.
Price cut by a million and haven't sold yet
59 square meters, two bedrooms and one living room, the price is 11 million yuan-the suite recommended by Chang Wei has not been sold for more than two months.
If you only look at the size, age, quality of the community, and property services, the houses in the Fenghuiyuan community are not worth the price. In addition to the good location near Financial Street, the reason for pushing up housing prices is also because the counterpart school is Hongmiao Primary School.
Hongmiao Primary School is a famous school in Beijing with a history of more than 100 years. In order to allow children to enroll smoothly, as soon as the enrollment policy is released in April and May every year, many parents are planning to buy houses in the "division" community of Hongmiao Primary School such as Fenghuiyuan and "stand" in the first echelon of enrollment.
After the announcement of the new policy for enrollment in Xicheng this year, in order to catch the last train, some parents accelerated their purchase of houses.
"On the days of the May Day holiday, I took home buyers to see the house from morning to night, and had to squeeze time for dinner!" The transaction volume increased so much that Chang Wei was even busy until 11 pm. Judging from the actual transaction data of Lianjia in Beijing, the daily transaction volume during the "May Day" period in 2020 has increased by more than 100% year-on-year. Among them, the transaction volume of Xicheng increased by more than 100% year-on-year and month-on-month.
On May 1, the 59-square-meter two-bedroom apartment was listed on the market at a price of 12 million yuan, but the buyer was never confirmed. "The seller obviously wanted to take the opportunity to sell at a high price." Chang Wei said, but the market quickly calmed down. In the following two months, the house price was lowered 4 times, and finally fell to 11 million, but still failed to sell.
The price gap between adjacent areas is expected to narrow
Also on Xinwenhua Street, the average transaction price of second-hand houses on the west side of Tonglinge Road is about 160,000 to 180,000 yuan per square meter, while the average price of second-hand houses on the east side is 130,000 yuan to 40,000 yuan.
Across the street, the key reason for such a large gap in housing prices is that the schools are different. According to the previous policy, the west of Tonglinge Road was assigned to Experimental No. 2 Primary School, and the east was assigned to the branch of Experimental No. 2 Primary School, Hushuihe Primary School. The gap in teaching resources affects the housing prices in the zoned area.
Chang Wei said that although the first homebuyers here were also concerned about the dicing of the house, they were far less crazy than they are now. Later, every time the property market rises, the concept of "school district housing" will be speculated by many people, and the price is getting higher and higher.
What impressed me most was the rise in 2016 and 2017. "Seeing that house prices are rising fast, the seller's quotation is also reported very high, and then the buyer's mind is hot and signed." When the price increase was too exaggerated, Chang Wei was shocked.
As Beijing’s “March 17 New Deal” started the most stringent control season in 2017, while Beijing began to crack down on all kinds of exotic school district housing, Dongcheng, Haidian and other districts successively implemented the “multi-school division” policy. As of this year, the six districts of the city have clearly stated that newly purchased second-hand houses do not enjoy single-school partitioning, but enrollment through "multi-school partitioning".
"After the'multi-school division', the housing price difference of tens of thousands across the street will soon disappear." Chang Wei said that in the past, the counterpart school in each community was very clear, which greatly affected housing prices; Schools in the corresponding districts are matched randomly, and some popular school districts “cool down” accordingly.
Both volume and price drop
After the "May Day" holiday, Chang Wei gradually felt the power of the new enrollment policy. "Within 10 days after the enrollment policy was introduced, the transaction volume did increase, but the price did not change much; after 10 days, both the transaction volume and the price began to decline."
Such large-scale price cuts have also been staged in the school district housing market in Dongcheng and Haidian. Half a year after the implementation of "multi-school division", housing prices in Dongcheng fell by 7% and those in Haidian fell by 11%.
Under the stimulus of the policy, the demand for housing purchase in West City continued to be released in the first half of May, and the market started to fall deeply in the second half of May. According to data from the Shell Research Institute, in the first 19 days of July, the proportion of actual second-hand housing transactions in Xicheng District in the city fell from a high of 11% in May to 6%, the lowest monthly value since 2019; the average transaction price was higher than in May Points fell 8%, basically returning to the pre-policy average. From this point of view, "multi-school scribing" only brought short-term price fluctuations, and market conditions gradually declined and stabilized.
In the past, the transaction volume of popular areas also fell. After the concentrated release of demand in May, the trading volume of Desheng and Financial Street, which has better educational resources, was cut in June. Data shows that in May just after the new admission policy was released, the month-on-month and year-on-year growth rates of transactions in these two areas were both more than twice; after the concentrated release of demand, June transactions were cut in half from the previous month, with a decrease of 53% and 57% respectively. "Demand has been released and the popularity of second-hand housing in the Xicheng area is expected to continue to fall." said Xu Xiaole, chief market analyst at Shell Research Institute.
"The trading volume can't go up, the demand is less, the price will naturally drop." Chang Wei also hopes that the market will return to rational calm. After 10 years, he is well aware of the importance of the stability of the property market. Although the skyrocketing has brought about an increase in transaction volume, it will soon attract more stringent control policies and put the market into a state of "frozen".