Author: Zheng Na
Pushing open the window on the 26th floor, a strong wind blew into the well-designed model room, bringing bursts of refreshing air. Nearby are the towering office buildings and the Xichan Temple with strong incense, and the end of the city's greenery in the distance. It is rolling hills.
A set of SOHO houses that can enjoy such a city scene in Fuzhou has a total area of about 38 square meters and the price is only 860,000 yuan.
Many buyers were excited for this, and on a working day in early September, the sales offices and model rooms of the project were crowded.
"I have received 11 groups of customers today." A young salesman counted the customer list again, his tone was a little helpless, but he couldn't hide his joy, "There are not enough sales."
This rare fiery scene is not the epitome of the current property market in Fuzhou. On the contrary, it is only a case in point, due to the effect of developers' sharp price cuts.
A number of local real estate industry insiders in Fuzhou told Yicai that at present, the property market has entered the traditional peak sales season of "golden nine and silver ten".
After all, Fuzhou, as the home base of many Fujian-based real estate companies, has suffered a severe setback in the confidence of home buyers due to successive explosions of companies.
"The situation of these leading real estate companies such as Sunshine City, Shimao, and Zhengrong, home buyers in Fuzhou know that many projects have been suspended, and the owners are worried about delivery." A local real estate industry insider in Fuzhou said that this has led to Many people prefer to wait and see.
The future of Fuzhou's property market still seems to depend on the debt crisis of housing companies to be resolved and the rebuilding of market confidence.
Public price cuts are increasingly common
The above-mentioned hot projects are from China Resources Land and are SOHO products located in the core urban area of Fuzhou.
On September 8, the project launched a promotion, and the price of houses with a total price of more than one million was reduced to the "8 prefix" after discount, and there were also activities to send parking spaces.
This kind of discount has brought a lot of visits to the project. As of the evening of the 8th, the data sent by the intermediary showed that the project visited 192 groups of customers in one day and sold 63 sets.
In the deserted Fuzhou property market, such single-day transactions are rare.
Hu Huan (pseudonym), who has worked in the real estate industry for more than ten years and has been deeply involved in the Fuzhou market in recent years, has roughly calculated the market performance of Fuzhou from 2022 to the present. The average monthly transaction volume of a single transaction is about 20.
"It's 'Golden Nine and Silver Ten' now. It can be said that developers have entered the stage of running, and each has more actions." Hu Huan believes that the above-mentioned SOHO projects of China Resources Land are now reduced in price. Coupled with the surrounding large-scale commercial complexes, with good rental support, it has successfully attracted some investment customers.
In fact, since the beginning of this year, special rooms and price cuts have recently become the norm in the Fuzhou property market.
The reporter recently visited the residential projects of two Fujian-based housing companies located in Cangshan District, Fuzhou City.
The special price of a project under China Overseas Properties is about 13,000 yuan per square meter, which is more than 40% lower than the highest average price.
In addition, real estate companies have lowered the down payment threshold through various methods such as down payment installments and subsidies, providing customers with easier opportunities to get on the bus.
"In the short term, the way to 'break the situation' in Fujian's local market is to cut prices." Lin Qing (pseudonym), who has worked in the real estate industry for nearly ten years, said.
He worked for a local housing company in Fujian for several years, and then joined a national housing company headquartered in South China, where he was responsible for marketing and other work in the local market in Fujian.
Facing the next sales window period, Lin Qing's real estate company also chose to join the price cut.
Although the current facts have proved that the price reduction has effectively stimulated a wave of detoxification, in Hu Huan's view, the excitement brought about by these measures does not mean an improvement in the market.
He told reporters that in the past "golden nine and silver ten", real estate companies held some activities and promoted some special rooms, and the popularity of the sales department was good. But before this year's Mid-Autumn Festival, the discounts of real estate companies will be released one week in advance, and prices will be reduced. Increasing distribution points and grabbing customers means that the market has yet to be repaired.
Hu Huan predicts that the market in September will be better than that in July and August, but it is still uncertain how much the effect will be.
"Every real estate company is cutting prices, and there is no way to assess how much improvement it can bring to the transaction."
Base Camp of Fujian Real Estate Enterprises
According to the data provided by CRIC, the transaction volume in the five districts of Fuzhou fell by 46% year-on-year in the first half of the year; in August, the number of new homes signed online was 1,665, which was also the first time in the past two years that it fell below 2,000 in a non-Spring Festival month.
An insider of a national housing company in Fujian said bluntly that Fuzhou has recently introduced policies including reducing down payment, relaxing purchase restrictions, restricting loans, and increasing the loan limit of provident fund, but the stimulus effect is not obvious. Compared with other cities, Fuzhou has The market situation may be more severe.
Because many Fujian-based housing companies headquartered in Fuzhou have exploded, and these housing companies have a relatively high market share in the local market, home buyers generally have doubts about the projects of such housing companies.
Fuzhou, as the starting point for Fujian-based real estate enterprises to enter the national market, was also the granary and base camp for these enterprises to make their fortunes, and each of them has abundant project reserves here.
In 1996, Sunshine Group founded by Lin Tengjiao in Fuzhou entered the real estate industry; in the same year, Huang Qisen founded Tahoe Group in Fuzhou; in 2003, Shimao entered Fuzhou for the first time to build Shimao Bund Garden; in the same year, Powerlong Real Estate also landed its commercial project in Fuzhou. .
In 2004, Ronshine, which was established in Fuzhou for one year, developed its first real estate project; in 2007, Zhengrong Real Estate, which started in Putian, also entered Fuzhou; Fusheng, which became the dark horse of the industry in 2017 by virtue of the "Flying Tigers" acquisition of land, also Once topped the Fuzhou property market...
In addition, for the local people in Fuzhou, the unlisted Rongqiao is also a religious existence.
This company, founded by Indonesian overseas Chinese Lin Wenjing in 1989, has a business layout involving port operations, commerce, real estate, education and other industries. And the river view house it built is now more than 60,000 second-hand houses.
Many local real estate insiders in Fuzhou have described Rongqiao as the "most recognized real estate company" in the local area, and "basically, people in Fuzhou will buy Rongqiao's houses".
In the whole year of 2021, Rongqiao has become the champion of the full-caliber sales list in the five districts of Fuzhou with sales of about 17.8 billion yuan.
The competition among the Fujian-based housing companies in the Fuzhou market has shaped the local people's perception of housing purchases.
Lin Qing told reporters that many business owners transformed into real estate at that time. Under the fierce market competition, "it really can't be done without any strength. Most of the products of Fujian-based developers are good", and Tahoe's product strength is also quite popular. Good reviews.
In 2012, the products of Fujian-based developers already had the concept of gardens.
These have built the product standards that Fuzhou buyers are quite picky about.
However, in order to expand their scale, Fujian-based housing companies have gradually moved their headquarters out of Fujian and moved the capital to Beijing and Shanghai.
"The market capacity of Fuzhou is relatively limited. If you want to break out of the scale of 10 billion, you have to add all the projects in Putian, Fuqing, Ningde and other counties and cities." Hu Huan said that although the Fuzhou market is limited, However, most Fujian departments will still choose to keep the market at their doorstep.
Such a strategy enables Fujian-based real estate companies to always occupy a place on the local sales list in Fuzhou.
According to CRIC’s Fuzhou sales data, in the ten years from 2011 to 2020, among the top 10 Fuzhou real estate companies in terms of cumulative sales, apart from Vanke and Poly, the rest were all private housing companies in Fujian: Sunshine City, Ronshine, Rongqiao occupies the top three on the list; Sansheng Group also ranks fifth in the base camp with sales of over 19.5 billion.
With the opening of a new round of real estate cycle in 2014, China Shipping, Country Garden, Evergrande, Longfor, Greentown and many other real estate companies with a national layout entered the city on the west bank of the Taiwan Strait during this period.
Therefore, due to the dual competition between powerful foreign housing companies and strong local housing companies, under the impetus of shantytown reform and demolition at that time, Fuzhou’s “land kings” emerged one after another from 2016 to 2017.
In 2016, Sunshine City won a plot in Gulou District, Fuzhou for a total price of 1.55 billion yuan, and the actual floor price was as high as 45,000 yuan/square meter.
As a result, house prices have skyrocketed.
According to the August 2016 housing price data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, Fuzhou housing prices rose by 4.3% month-on-month, surpassing Xiamen for the first time and ranking fifth in the country. As of this month, Fuzhou housing prices have risen for 15 consecutive months.
In addition, according to CRERUI data, in 2017, the average transaction price of commercial housing in the five urban areas of Fuzhou exceeded 20,000 yuan per square meter, with a year-on-year growth rate of over 20%.
In September 2016, Fuzhou issued a "price limit order", requiring the record price of the same project to increase by no more than 10%; in November, the regulations were upgraded, requiring "zero increase in the record price".
Since then, the purchase restriction policy in Fuzhou was restarted in 2017, and the transaction volume in the five urban areas was cut in half, down 51% year-on-year.
House price growth has slowed, but it is still reaching an all-time high of 27,000 yuan/square meter in 2020.
Market reshaping focusing on "guaranteed delivery"
The Fuzhou market had a brief rise before entering the current downturn.
At the beginning of 2021, Fuzhou's "zero threshold" settlement policy will be implemented, which will promote the concentrated release of the demand of non-local customer groups.
"Last year, the transaction volume increased by 1 million square meters, which is the dividend of the liberalization of the settlement policy." Hu Huan said.
It is also against the background of this policy that in June 2021, Evergrande, which has fallen into debt crisis, still harvested the last wave in the Fuzhou market.
At that time, Evergrande Binjiang Zuoan, which opened for the first time, directly hit the price to 19,000 yuan/square meter, which was far lower than the record price of about 25,000/square meter, becoming one of the earliest real estate prices in the Fuzhou market.
Later statistics showed that over 500 units were sold on the day the project opened.
Regrettably, in June 2022, the project was suspended due to arrears of wages for employees and non-payment of development and construction costs by relevant parties.
Like Evergrande, many other Fujian-based real estate companies have also fallen into operational difficulties one after another due to high turnover and high leverage strategies, and the problem of real estate shutdowns has also become prominent in Fuzhou.
From the second half of 2021 to the present, including Sunshine City, Shimao, Yuzhou, Baolong, Zhengrong, Rongxin, Sansheng, etc., housing companies in Fujian have successively exposed or defaulted or extended the news.
Recently, Rongqiao has also had various news such as bond rollover and executive pay suspension.
The debt defaults of these housing companies have more or less affected the construction progress of their properties.
According to incomplete statistics from CRIC, as of the end of 2021, the total construction area of Fuzhou’s undelivered problem projects was 890,000 square meters, accounting for 21% of the total transaction area in 2021; 19% of the total number of transactions.
Among the 24 key cities in the country, Fuzhou ranks in the forefront in terms of the area of undelivered projects and the proportion of undelivered projects.
At present, the supervisory level attaches great importance to the issue of guaranteeing the handover of buildings. Recently, several departments have spoken out several times, mentioning that the handover of buildings and people's livelihood can be stabilized. Local governments have also responded positively and explored ways to solve the problem.
According to local media reports in Fuzhou, for the left bank of Evergrande Riverside, where construction was suspended, the relevant person in charge of the Fuzhou Housing Administration Bureau disclosed in late August that the project supervision account has sufficient funds to cover the construction of the project, and relevant departments are actively introducing other powerful companies. Enterprises have invested in the purchase of Evergrande's shares in this project to promote the full resumption of the project and solve the problem of funding gaps in other Evergrande projects.
In order to maintain the market share of the base camp, Fujian-based real estate companies are also working hard to maintain their reputation and actively promote guaranteed delivery.
In mid-August, Sunshine City Fujian Region held a press conference on the delivery guarantee and supervision system, and disclosed data that in the first half of 2022, Sunshine City Fujian Region delivered 17 projects with a total of 9,995 residential units, and the on-time delivery rate reached 100%. .
In the first half of 2022, Ronshine, which is deeply involved in Fuzhou, also completed the delivery of 8 real estates with over 6,000 households.
Recently, the construction completion and delivery of Rongqiao projects in many places across the country are progressing steadily, covering Fuzhou, Shanghai and other places.