Zhongxin Finance, April 19 (Zuo Yukun) On the 18th, the National Bureau of Statistics released the national real estate development investment and sales from January to March 2022.
Data show that in the first three months of this year, the national real estate development investment maintained a year-on-year growth, but the growth rate continued to decline; the area and amount of housing sales both declined.
One increase and one decrease, what trend does it reflect?
How will the real estate market develop in the next stage?
Data map: Real estate real estate.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Zhang Bin
Real estate development investment data is still cold
From the perspective of supply, from January to March, the national real estate development investment was 2,776.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 0.7%; of which, residential investment was 2,076.1 billion yuan, an increase of 0.7%.
"The current growth rate of development investment is below 5%, and it is close to the zero axis, indicating that the development investment data is cold." Yan Yuejin, research director of the Think Tank Center of E-House Research Institute, said.
Wang Xiaoqiang, head of Zhuge Housing Data Research Center, also pointed out that the growth rate of development investment has continued to decline, which has fallen for 12 consecutive months, and the growth rate has hit a new low in nearly 20 months.
In terms of the scale of new housing construction nationwide, the newly started housing area was 298.38 million square meters, a decrease of 17.5%, of which the newly started residential area was 215.58 million square meters, a decrease of 20.3%.
The completed area of housing was 169.29 million square meters, down 11.5%, of which the completed area of residential buildings was 123.23 million square meters, down 11.3%.
Chen Wenjing, market research director of the Index Division of the China Index Research Institute, believes that this reflects that the market is still in a continuous adjustment trend, and the motivation for companies to start construction is obviously insufficient.
"In the short term, the overall adjustment trend of the real estate sales market will continue. Although there is a marginal improvement in corporate financing, the overall financial pressure of enterprises is still relatively large, which will continue to drag down new construction and investment scale to a certain extent. At a high level, the pressure to adjust the investment amount will not decrease." Chen Wenjing said.
However, Chen Wenjing also mentioned that the market sentiment in individual hot cities has recovered, and the new construction in these areas is expected to improve marginally.
Screenshot source: National Bureau of Statistics official website
Home sales area and sales are down
"Investment continues to be dragged down by the downturn in the market, and the unfavorable sales side makes it difficult for most real estate companies to increase investment in land and construction. The chain of real estate from sales to land acquisition to financing is blocked as a whole." Pan Hao, senior analyst at Shell Research Institute pointed out.
How does the performance of the sales side affect the investment side?
According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, from January to March, the sales area of commercial housing was 310.46 million square meters, a year-on-year decrease of 13.8%; among which, the sales area of residential buildings decreased by 18.6%.
The sales of commercial housing were 2,965.5 billion yuan, down 22.7%; among which, the sales of residential buildings fell by 25.6%.
"The year-on-year decline continued to expand, mainly due to the superposition of the high base and repeated epidemics that have had a greater impact on the Yangtze River Delta, the Greater Bay Area, and the Northeast." Pan Hao pointed out that from the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, the eastern region, The cumulative sales in the Northeast region fell by 27.7% and 33.9% year-on-year respectively, much higher than other regions.
At the end of March, the area of commercial housing for sale was 561.13 million square meters, a year-on-year increase of 8.2%.
Among them, the residential area for sale increased by 14.2%.
Yan Yuejin said that this also shows that the easing policy since the fourth quarter of last year has not fully released its effect, and the market rebound is facing resistance.
"Although more than 70 cities have issued positive policies, it will take time for the market and confidence to recover. At the same time, the release of demand and incentive policies will be more conducive to the bottom repair of the current market." Pan Hao also believes.
Screenshot source: National Bureau of Statistics official website
Downturn in sales will ease
Regarding the decline in real estate sales and the fact that real estate investment still maintains a certain growth, Fu Linghui, spokesperson of the National Bureau of Statistics and director of the National Economic Comprehensive Statistics Department, analyzed at the press conference that historically, real estate investment and commercial housing sales have increased. The relationship has generally maintained the same direction change, but the change of real estate investment growth is obviously smaller than that of commercial housing sales.
"The main reason is that once the construction of a real estate project starts, real estate companies generally continue to promote the project construction, so as to ensure the collection of project sales, and the corresponding real estate investment has a certain stability relative to sales. Therefore, even in the sluggish market or even decline in sales. Under such circumstances, real estate investment may still maintain a certain growth. For example, this happened in 2012, 2014 and 2015." Fu Linghui explained.
As for the next real estate trend, Fu Linghui believes that although the current real estate sales are declining, it should be noted that with the moderate release of restrictions on purchases and sales in many places, lowering the threshold for the use of provident funds, and speeding up the approval of purchase loans, etc. Housing demand has been released, and the decline in sales area has narrowed.
Chen Wenjing also mentioned that since 2022, the central government and various ministries and commissions have frequently released signals of stability maintenance, local cities have implemented policies to fully support the release of reasonable housing demand, optimized control policies, and the market activity of individual hot cities has increased.
However, the current real estate market is still in a stage of deep adjustment. Under the repeated epidemics in many places, homebuyers lack confidence in buying a home, and market expectations are still weak.
"In the short term, localities may continue to increase the optimization and adjustment of demand-side policies. As the policies gradually take effect, market sentiment is expected to gradually improve, but the pace of market recovery still depends on the effect of epidemic prevention and control." Chen Wenjing said.
Fu Linghui pointed out that in the next stage, all localities will adhere to "housing and not speculating", continue to stabilize land prices, house prices, and expectations, improve the long-term mechanism of the real estate market, and actively meet reasonable housing needs, and the downward trend of national commercial housing sales may be alleviated.
With the continuous improvement of the long-term rental market and the accelerated construction of affordable housing, the real estate market is expected to gradually stabilize.
(Finish)