Recently, the real estate market has continued to benefit.
Not only asset management companies (AMC), banks and other financial institutions have come to the end to solve the problem of "unfinished building" delivery, the financial supervision department also plans to arrange special loans for policy banks to bail out the real estate, and at the same time reduce the LPR interest rate for more than 5 years again. , guiding the continuous decline of mortgage interest rates, etc., have released a clear signal of "stabilizing the real estate" and "stabilizing the economy".
The real estate industry is related to the national economy and people's livelihood, and affects the rights and interests of residents, real estate companies, upstream and downstream industries, local governments, financial institutions and other parties.
Looking at the current situation, how did the real estate-related woes arise?
What are the difficulties in the promotion of "guaranteing and handing over buildings", and how should finance make more efforts?
When will the real estate market stabilize?
To this end, the Beijing News Shell Finance invited Liu Xiaochun, vice president of Shanghai New Financial Research Institute and former president of Zheshang Bank, and Li Qilin, director and chief economist of Hongta Securities Research Institute, to jointly interpret the "change" in the real estate market.
Beijing News: How do you think the current changes in the real estate market are different from the previous ones?
Liu Xiaochun: After my country began to implement the commercial housing system in the 1990s, due to the historical debts of housing construction and other reasons, real estate has ushered in a wave of prosperity and development for more than 20 years, and housing prices "only rose but not fell."
The real estate market has yet to experience a true industry cycle.
The current real estate market is at an important juncture of an industry turning point.
At present, the basic demand for commercial housing in my country has almost reached the basic saturation point. Although residents will still have rigid demand and improved housing demand in the real estate market in the future, it is not the same as the blowout demand in the previous 20 years.
This means that my country's real estate industry is returning to the track of normal development.
In this transition process, we must implement the principle of "housing, not speculating".
Li Qilin: During the adjustment process of the real estate market in the past, the expectation of rising house prices is still there, and the sales model of off-plan houses with rapid turnover has not fundamentally changed. The marginal changes in the sales market are sluggish, and the collection of funds is not smooth, and there is a gap between new construction and completion, which in turn affects the delivery of pre-sale houses.
Coupled with the repeated epidemics that have damaged residents' balance sheets and reduced the ability and willingness to increase leverage, the logic of real estate has undergone fundamental changes.
Beijing News: What do you think is the difficulty of "guaranteeing the handover" in the process of this round of financial bailout of real estate?
What do you recommend to do at the policy level?
Liu Xiaochun: The current policies for the real estate market are constantly on the rise. Many regions have relaxed restrictions on the purchase of the real estate market and lowered the interest rate of mortgages, etc., mainly to promote the recovery and remodeling of the real estate market. The logic of growth is fundamentally different.
The reason for the "guaranteed handover" problem is mainly due to the pre-sale system.
In the past period of time, the pre-sale housing system was conducive to solving the historical debt problem of insufficient housing supply in my country, but due to lax supervision, capital project funds were misappropriated.
Although the current capital supervision has become more stringent, it is still recommended to adjust the pre-sale housing system appropriately.
The pre-sale system should be changed to "pre-order", just like booking a hotel for travel, where a deposit is paid in advance when the house is not fully built, not the full payment.
The bank's mortgage loan policy for first-hand houses should also change accordingly, and should return to the idea of using actual mortgages for mortgages, that is, mortgage loans can only be carried out on completed houses.
This will also help control the number of "unfinished buildings" from increasing.
In the process of "guaranteing the delivery of buildings" in the stock, the first thing to do is "guarantee the properties but not the enterprises", compact the responsibilities of the real estate enterprises and other parties, and prevent the occurrence of moral hazard.
In the process of bail-out, it is necessary to analyze the specific problems of different real estates and different enterprises, rather than delineating "uniform standards" and "uniform plans".
For enterprises with temporary capital flow problems, the rescue plan can be through policy banks or banks to provide a temporary revolving loan to solve this unfinished problem; for enterprises that do have problems such as poor management, self-rescue can be encouraged. Land transfer, transfer of high-quality projects, etc. to solve funding problems.
Li Qilin: It can be seen from the policies recently introduced that on the one hand, the attitude of supervising "guaranteing the handover of buildings" and "stabilizing people's livelihood" is very clear, arranging policy banks to carry out special loans for real estate bailouts, and encouraging financial institutions such as AMC to pass the market. The rescue through channels is conducive to providing liquidity support for these housing companies facing difficulties, and solving the urgent need for these housing companies to break the capital chain, which has played an obvious role in stabilizing expectations in the current environment.
On the other hand, policies are also exerting efforts to boost effective demand, such as lowering the 5-year LPR interest rate and lowering the personal mortgage loan interest rate again, which can not only reduce the mortgage pressure of the buyers who have already bought them, but also stimulate the increase in sales to a certain extent. .
The recently introduced real estate bailout policies, rather than preventing and resolving debt risks, focus more on ensuring delivery and stabilizing people's livelihood.
At present, the main difficulty is that tools such as bailout funds and special loans are relatively limited compared to the funding gap, and it is difficult to solve it overnight. In the subsequent process of actual operation, priority should be given to the delivery deadline, construction progress and asset quality of each project. Select those projects with tight delivery time and high net asset value to bail out and revitalize funds, and then promote other projects, thus forming a virtuous circle.
In terms of supporting the recovery of the real estate market, the key point in the future is to stabilize real estate sales through a series of measures, open up the chain from land acquisition to new construction, so that real estate companies can slowly get out of the predicament through their own capital turnover.
Beijing News: How do you think the confidence in the real estate market should be rebuilt?
Liu Xiaochun: I expect that the problem of "guaranteing the handover of the building" will not last long and can be properly dealt with, which is conducive to the restoration of confidence in the real estate market.
At present, it is also possible to moderately liberalize the second-hand housing market under the principle of "housing, not speculating," which can also bring confidence to the first-hand housing market to a certain extent.
For the future, real estate companies need to resume rational operation, manage their balance sheets in accordance with the previous regulatory requirements for the "three red lines", change the previous development model of pursuing scale expansion and high debt, and gradually rebuild market confidence.
Li Qilin: Restoring market confidence mainly lies in the following aspects: First, the issue of mutual trust between real estate enterprises and home buyers. It is necessary to guarantee the handover of the property, so that residents can trust the real estate enterprises to dare to buy new houses, so that the sales proceeds can be smoothly collected. The purpose of policies such as policy bank special loans and AMC's establishment of a bailout fund.
The second is the issue of mutual trust between real estate enterprises and financial institutions.
It has been reported recently that China Bond Credit Enhancement Investment Corporation will provide a full, unconditional and irrevocable joint liability guarantee for some real estate enterprise debts. The full guarantee of China Bond Credit Enhancement Corporation can alleviate the liquidity pressure of the guaranteed real estate enterprises to a certain extent. In addition, credit support from major state-owned banks is also required, and this part of the financing mechanism needs to be further opened up.
Whether the market can stabilize in the second half of the year mainly depends on two key factors: First, how effective the current support policy is, whether it can help the real estate bailout, successfully complete the delivery of sold houses, and restore residents' confidence in real estate.
Second, on the demand side, it is necessary to cut interest rates to reduce the housing loan cost of the residential sector, but fundamentally it still depends on whether the residents' balance sheets are repaired, and the economy stabilizes and drives the residents' willingness and demand to increase leverage.
At this stage, the focus of the rescue policy is to "guarantee delivery" and restore market confidence. In the long run, the key to the stable development of the real estate market is to form a virtuous circle. After the capital chain of real estate enterprises is repaired, the real estate market needs to be able to enter the "sales return period". Payment - land acquisition - start of construction - sales receipt" positive feedback.
Beijing News: What role will the real estate market play in my country's economy in the future?
Liu Xiaochun: In the past 20 years, the real estate market as a pillar industry has laid the foundation for the rapid development of my country's economy, but it is expected that my country's economic growth will not continue to use the development of the real estate industry as the main driving force to support economic development in the future.
In the future, the real estate market industry may be one of the industries undergoing economic adjustment, and its share of the stock may still be large, but the incremental share may gradually shrink.
The real estate industry should be regarded as "an industry that normally meets people's basic living needs".
In order to reduce the over-reliance of the economy on the real estate market, it is necessary to find "new kinetic energy" for economic development.
This mainly comes from emerging industries and industries under the development of emerging technologies, as well as the upgrading of traditional industries.
my country should also further promote the process of opening to the outside world. While continuously increasing the localization rate, it should also continue to integrate with the world economy.
In addition, my country should further open up the market. While supporting high-tech industries and high-tech industries, we should not over-squeeze some bottom-end industries. As long as they meet the requirements of relevant laws and regulations, they can be allowed to develop in accordance with the natural laws of the market.
Returning the market to the market will help stimulate the emergence of more "new momentum" in the economy.
Li Qilin: In the past few decades, the development of the real estate industry has not only helped my country to achieve rapid urbanization, but also provided huge momentum for economic growth.
But now that economic growth has entered a new normal, and the momentum of economic growth is in the process of transformation, it is inevitable that some setbacks will be encountered in the transformation and upgrading of the economic structure.
In the past, the high yield and high growth of the real estate industry absorbed a large part of social resources.
The current economic growth requires transformation and upgrading. To reduce over-reliance on the real estate industry, the focus can be on improving the labor rate of return through the support and guidance of national policies, and attracting social resources to flow from the real estate industry to those in the real estate industry through marketization. Advanced manufacturing, new materials, new energy and other industries that meet the national strategic development requirements.
Beijing News Shell Finance reporter Jiang Fan
Photo of this edition / Photo courtesy of the interviewee