Recently, a survey report that stated that "the average housing vacancy rate in 28 large and medium-sized cities across the country is 12%" has once again triggered public discussions on vacant housing.
According to the report, Nanchang, Langfang, and Foshan ranked the top three in terms of housing vacancy rates, all above 15%, and Nanchang's housing vacancy rate reached 20%.
However, on August 11, the agency stated that some of the survey questionnaire data were collected incorrectly, resulting in inaccurate data. At the same time, the survey used "whether the house has been unoccupied for three consecutive months" as a judgment indicator, which could not fully reflect the real situation.
In fact, the discussion on vacant housing has not stopped for more than ten years, and the housing vacancy rate generally affects the nerves of the public.
What is the housing vacancy rate?
First, what is the housing vacancy rate?
In fact, there is no unified standard for the definition of vacant housing at home and abroad. The government has never made an interpretation of the definition of vacancy rate, nor has it released official housing vacancy rate data.
Zhao Xiuchi, a professor at Capital University of Economics and Business, vice-chairman and secretary-general of the Beijing Real Estate Law Society, told The Paper that according to the statistics of the United Nations and the United States, vacant houses are defined as "houses with no occupancy records at the time of the census or survey." ; The vacancy rate is defined as "the proportion of vacant housing units in all housing units in a country or region at the time of the survey".
The EU does not have a unified definition of vacant houses, but almost all member states classify houses that are being renovated or renovated, abandoned houses that cannot be used, and houses waiting to be demolished as vacant houses, resulting in the vacancy rate calculated by most EU countries. higher than that calculated by US standards.
Zhao Xiuchi said that at present, China has not announced the official statistical caliber of the vacancy rate, but there is a vacancy area.
In August 1995, the "Statistical Statement System of Fixed Assets Investment" issued by the National Bureau of Statistics of China pointed out: "Vacant area refers to the part of the completed commercial housing construction area at the end of the reporting period that has not yet been sold or leased, including those completed in previous years. and the area of properties completed in the current period available for sale or lease but not sold or leased.”
According to the notice issued by the former Ministry of Construction, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the National Bureau of Statistics on the clear classification of the types of vacant commercial housing, starting from the 2003 statistical annual report, the vacancy time of commercial housing is used as the standard to classify.
Commercial houses that have been vacant for less than 1 year are unsold commercial houses; those that have been vacant for more than 1 year and less than 3 years are unsalable commercial houses; those that have been vacant for more than 3 years are backlogged commercial houses.
Why is the housing vacancy rate controversial?
The "housing vacancy rate" is considered to be an important indicator to measure the housing market bubble, and it can also reflect the health of the housing market. However, in the eyes of industry insiders, there is no authoritative definition for the calculation of the housing vacancy rate indicator, especially the length of time it has been vacant. No authoritative data has been released for vacant housing, so the topic of housing vacancy rates has been frequently mentioned.
Taking 2020 as an example, a news that "there are 65.4 million vacant houses in the country" has been widely spread. The news said that there are currently as many as 65.4 million houses in my country with zero readings for 6 consecutive months, which means that these houses have zero readings. It is vacant and can accommodate nearly 200 million people based on the calculation of three persons per suite.
According to the "Economic Daily" report, this fake news is actually "old news" many years ago, and relevant personnel of State Grid have made it clear that they have never released relevant data, nor have they made statistics on such data.
In May 2015, an agency released statistics saying, "The primary problem in China's property market is that the vacancy rate is too high, with a vacant area of 1 billion square meters."
Earlier, the China Household Finance Survey and Research Center of Southwestern University of Finance and Economics pointed out in the report "Urban Household Housing Vacancy Rate and Housing Market Development Trend 2014" released on June 10, 2014 that in 2013 China's urban household vacancy rate was as high as 22.4%. %, vacant housing assets accounted for 11.8% of the total household assets in urban areas, and 4.2 trillion bank mortgage loans were deposited in vacant housing.
Data from the report said there was 32.5 million existing housing demand, 48.98 million vacant units, and 3.5 million commercial housing supply for sale.
That is, the stock of vacant homes even exceeds the entire housing demand.
It can be seen that many vacancy rate data from different sources are difficult to verify.
However, for the vacancy rate statement, the official has come forward to respond.
According to a report by Xinhuanet in May 2015, at that time, a spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics said, "From a short-term and superficial point of view, it is difficult to give a standard for the status and time of vacancy, and it is difficult to calculate clearly. At a deeper level, the main reason is that we have not yet had the support of the credit reporting system, and the investigation lacks an objective and scientific basis. The future depends on the implementation of the real estate registration system." A person from the housing construction department said in an interview that regarding the vacancy rate, currently "there is no accurate official definition".
At present, the housing vacancy rate data is still absent from the official data.
Zhao Xiuchi said that on the one hand, statistical indicators need to be discussed, on the other hand, it is difficult to conduct a comprehensive census, and the data from point-by-point sampling surveys cannot reflect the full and true situation; at the same time, my country has a vast territory and large differences between regions, so it is difficult to have a unified caliber as a scientific basis for decision-making.
How do you view vacant housing?
Chen Jie, director of the Housing and Urban-Rural Development Research Center of Shanghai Jiaotong University, believes that some residential vacancies are reasonable, and the residential market is fluid, and it is impossible to ensure that every residence is occupied all the time, especially rental housing. Objectively, there must be a certain vacancy in order to maintain the renewal and maintenance and the ability to accommodate the new population.
This part of the vacancy can be called "natural vacancy rate".
In addition, with the continuous improvement of people's lives, some properties used for tourism and vacation cannot actually be lived in real time.
But on the other hand, too much vacancy is indeed a waste of resources.
In Chen Jie's view, the reason why some houses are vacant is on the one hand because the holding cost is low, on the other hand because the current rental market is still to be improved, and the rent-to-sale ratio in some cities is relatively low.
Zhao Xiuchi also mentioned that there are many reasons why houses are vacant.
The usual reason is that the supply of houses exceeds the demand. Secondly, there is an inevitable vacancy period in the process of housing sales and rental, that is, "the time lag between supply and demand". Thirdly, with the improvement of living standards, the emergence of family vacation and leisure houses has led to My own house is vacant, and my house may be vacant if I rent a house for my children to go to school.
According to international common practice, 5% is a moderate vacancy rate, and the vacancy rate of commercial housing between 5% and 10% is a reasonable range of vacancy. The supply and demand of commercial housing is balanced, which is conducive to the healthy development of the national economy; the international real estate "bubble" vacancy rate control alert The line is 10%, and certain measures must be taken to increase the sales of commercial housing to ensure the normal development of the real estate market and the normal operation of the national economy; the vacancy rate between 10% and 20% is a vacancy danger zone; the vacancy rate is 20% More than % is a serious backlog of commercial housing.
Zhao Xiuchi said that the vacancy rate can theoretically be understood as housing oversupply and unoccupied houses.
However, there is a certain vacancy rate, which also shows that the level of residents' housing has improved, which is a better performance of living life.
How to effectively reduce the vacancy rate?
At present, there is still a lack of authoritative data on vacant housing, but how to effectively reduce the number of vacant housing is one of the issues worthy of attention.
Chen Jie believes that for vacant residences, necessary taxation measures should be taken, especially by increasing the tax on the holding link and increasing the cost of vacancy, thus forcing out malicious, vacant residences especially for speculative speculation. , so that as many residential resources as possible can be used by people, play their due role as soon as possible, and give the market a clear supply and demand signal.
Zhao Xiuchi believes that, on the one hand, from the perspective of the government, urban and rural planning, land use planning and real estate planning should be done well, and housing should be provided reasonably according to the relationship between people, land and housing, and the housing supply should meet the growing demand for housing; Utilization rate, allowing individuals to directly publish housing listings through the official Internet platform, including housing without property rights that can be rented out in a timely manner; third, strengthen popular science education on real estate investment and financial management knowledge, so that every family can consciously make housing effective Fourth, adjust the policy of restricting housing purchases and loans that were too strict in the past to promote the release of rigid and improved housing needs, and reduce the area for sale and vacancy of housing.
Yan Yuejin, a well-known real estate analyst, said that it may also be an idea to convert vacant houses into rentable houses.
Taking Changsha, Hunan as an example, on May 8 this year, the Changsha Municipal Leading Group for the Cultivation and Development of the Housing Rental Market issued the "Pilot Implementation Plan for Promoting the Multi-subject Supply and Multi-channel Guarantee of Revitalizing the Existing Housing in Changsha City's Rental Housing" (referred to as the "Program". ).
The "Plan" pointed out that the houses that have been handed over by online signing and filing or have been registered for real estate will not be included in the calculation of the number of family housing units after they have been revitalized for rental housing.
The pilot program introduced by Changsha aims to unblock the market channels of new houses, second-hand houses and rental housing, guide the overall planning and diversion of rigid demand, modified demand and rental demand, and promote a virtuous circle of the real estate market.