Sun Mengfan of China Business News
Zhengzhou is one more city where the government stepped forward to encourage residents to buy commercial housing.
Recently, the "Zhengzhou Commodity Housing Group Buying Fair" hosted by the Zhengzhou Municipal People's Government, Zhengdong New District Management Committee, Zhengzhou Housing Security and Real Estate Administration, and Zhengzhou Housing and Real Estate Industry Association was held in Zhengzhou to support emerging industry units, Scientific research institutes, industrial parks and other units collectively buy commercial housing to solve the housing problem for employees.
"Now that the epidemic prevention and control is gradually relaxed, this event is to encourage everyone to consume and boost the confidence of home buyers." A local intermediary in Zhengzhou said that there are indeed specific units that buy uniformly, but ordinary home buyers can go through an intermediary In this activity, the lowest price of group buying activities is obtained, and the intermediary recommends the source of customers to the real estate, and the calculation is made at the end of the month.
Not only Zhengzhou, but over 20 cities including Enshi, Guiyang, Zunyi, Tonglu, Tongling, Bazhong, Huanggang, Changchun, Lianyungang, and Shaoxing this year have released policies or activities related to group buying of commercial housing.
Enshi, Hubei, Guizhou and other places even announced that the preferential price of group buying commercial housing will not be included in the scope of the recorded price drop ratio.
In the view of the above-mentioned real estate professionals in Zhengzhou, such activities are actually lowering prices in disguise to stimulate the consumption of home buyers. The actual effect remains to be seen.
"There is a recovery trend in the market now, but it has not changed much from the previous period."
profit-making homebuyers
In order to boost the activity of the real estate market, in addition to the introduction of formal regulatory policies by local governments, group buying activities of commercial housing have also sprung up.
The newest place is Zhengzhou.
According to Zhao Hongjun, secretary of the party group and director of the Zhengzhou Housing Security and Real Estate Administration Bureau, the purpose of the above-mentioned activities is to give full play to the advantages of the new real estate policy, better implement decision-making and deployment, prevent and resolve risks, protect people's livelihood and maintain social stability, restore market vitality faster, and improve boost market confidence.
It is reported that the group-buying houses must be existing or quasi-existing houses with complete "five certificates" (completed and delivered within one year). There are favorable policies in terms of down payment ratio, deed tax subsidies, provident fund loans, etc., and real estate development companies are encouraged to give more preferential treatment.
According to many interviewed real estate professionals in Zhengzhou, the repeated epidemics in Zhengzhou have had a certain impact on the local commercial housing market. This type of group buying activities can boost consumer confidence and at the same time give more benefits to home buyers in terms of prices.
In the short term, it is conducive to promoting the transaction of those who are willing to buy houses, and increasing the enthusiasm of house buyers to enter the market.
The real estate market in Zhengzhou has indeed experienced a long period of downturn.
Crane Henan Regional Research Report stated that due to the impact of the epidemic in November, Zhengzhou was almost in a "semi-shutdown" state, the market activity dropped to a low point, and the transaction volume fell by nearly 70% month-on-month.
In the first November, the sales threshold of the top 20 real estate companies on the list dropped by 42% year-on-year. Most real estate companies only achieved about 30% of their sales targets, and only a few central enterprises had outstanding sales performance.
In order to attract homebuyers, real estate companies in Zhengzhou have exhausted their methods. In addition to seizing online sales channels, they have also introduced policies such as multiple discounts and unreasonable check-outs. However, the transaction volume in November still fell by 69% month-on-month and 90% year-on-year , the lowest value in the past year.
Although real estate companies continue to release discounts, the actual effect is getting weaker and weaker, and the performance of real estate companies in central China is particularly bleak.
As a result, this kind of government endorsement has emerged to boost consumer confidence.
At the aforementioned group buying meeting, the Zhengzhou government further emphasized that the real estate industry is an important part of Zhengzhou's economic and social development, and the healthy development of the real estate market is of great significance to stabilizing the economy, ensuring people's livelihood and social stability, and preventing and resolving financial risks.
In addition to carrying out group buying activities for commercial housing, Zhengzhou has also introduced a number of policies, including moderately adjusting the housing purchase restriction policy, ensuring equal treatment for new citizens buying houses, expanding the effective demand for housing, promoting both rental and purchase, implementing preferential tax policies for house purchases, launching house purchase subsidies, optimizing Financial services for house purchases for new citizens, and the implementation of the policy of "recognising loans but not houses".
Chen Wenjing, director of market research at the Index Division of the China Index Research Institute, believes that group buying will be superimposed with relevant policy support, which will help increase the enthusiasm of home buyers to enter the market in the short term, and the transaction volume of new homes is expected to improve.
In the medium and long term, the catalytic effect on buyers who are not willing to buy houses is not obvious, and the follow-up market still depends on the strength of policy support and the improvement of residents' income levels.
Group buying is booming
Earlier than Zhengzhou, many cities have tried this kind of activity.
A few days ago, the Hubei Enshi Housing and Construction Bureau issued a document saying that it supports state-owned enterprises to use group purchases to build new commercial housing as affordable rental housing sources to solve the housing difficulties of basic public service personnel.
Preferential prices for group-buying commercial housing are not included in the scope of the percentage decline in the registered price of commercial housing.
On October 10, the General Office of the Guizhou Provincial People's Government also issued a document to implement a stronger housing provident fund phased support policy, strengthen the optimization and implementation of the policies that have been introduced, and effectively guide the consumption of houses.
Encourage the employees of government agencies, enterprises and institutions to carry out group purchases of commercial housing, and the discounted prices for group purchases are not included in the scope of the decline in the recorded price of commercial housing.
At the beginning of November, the group purchase activity of commercial housing for employees led by Guiyang Federation of Trade Unions was officially launched.
The rules of the event are clear: the selling price of the active housing will be lower than the normal selling price of the corresponding real estate, and it will be the lowest price within 2 years.
A number of banks have followed up and offered discounts for house purchases through measures such as additional discounts for house purchases, green channels for loans, and preferential loan interest rates.
Previously, in order to stabilize the real estate market, many local governments issued "restriction orders" to limit the wanton price cuts of real estate companies. According to incomplete statistics, since the second half of last year, more than 20 cities across the country have issued "restriction orders", and some directly issued administrative orders. Orders, and some through interviews with real estate companies, restrict malicious price reductions, otherwise they will not be granted online visas.
Entering 2022, the number of cities with a price limit has decreased, and many cities have loosened the price limit for new houses.
Nowadays, the preferential prices of local group buying activities are not included in the scope of the decline in the recorded price of commercial housing. It is believed by the industry that localities have more flexibility and space in regulating the price of commercial housing.
"Development companies must put an end to the 'lay flat' thinking. The current real estate market is in a downturn, but the real estate market is cyclical, and the downturn will also be the beginning of a recovery period. At this time, it is even more necessary to boost confidence. Sources are brought out so that the citizens who participate in the group buying can buy satisfactory housing." The Zunyi side, which also held the group buying activity, said.
In fact, the property market prices in cities that have come up with this new "prescription" to save the market are relatively sluggish.
Taking Guiyang as an example, Kerry said that the Guiyang market has fallen into a period of deep adjustment, the downward pressure on the market has been intensifying, and the transaction has accelerated to decline in the past two years.
In 2022, the downward pressure on the Guiyang market will further intensify. In the first 10 months, the cumulative transaction volume in the main urban area was 3.25 million square meters, a year-on-year decrease of 39%, and the overall decline is accelerating.
"Limited by the increasing downward pressure on the Guiyang market, real estate companies continue to increase their promotion efforts, and discounts such as special housing and work-arrival housing have been implemented in turn, but the actual results have been minimal." The Crane Research Report stated that, except for Guanshanhu District, housing prices are relatively similar. In addition to being relatively strong, housing prices in other regions are expected to turn down in an all-round way. Under the psychological expectation of "buy up and not buy down", the market's wait-and-see sentiment has become more intense.
Kerry said that the Guiyang government's price guarantee will boost market confidence to a certain extent, stimulate the concentrated release of housing demand, and short-term transactions may increase significantly.
However, in the long run, it will take a long period of time for the Guiyang market to stabilize. After all, it is not easy to reverse market confidence. Market demand and purchasing power also need time to accumulate.
Cao Jingjing, research director of the Index Business Department of the China Index Research Institute, believes that due to factors such as the industry downturn and residents' employment and income expectations, this year, the buyers who just need houses have a strong wait-and-see mood, and the buyers who want to improve are more willing to buy houses than those who just need houses. , The proportion of improved residential products with high total price has increased.
"In the case of strong support for improvement needs, it is necessary to increase policy support. Before the property market stabilizes, there is still room for optimization in the loan restriction policy and suburban purchase restriction policy in first- and second-tier cities." Cao Jingjing said.
Bank of China Securities said that recently, many second-tier cities have successively introduced demand-side relaxation policies. The down payment ratio of Nanjing’s second house has been reduced, the purchase restriction outside the second ring road in Wuhan has been lifted, the purchase restriction outside Xiamen Island has been adjusted, and the entire city of Foshan has canceled purchase restrictions. It is expected that the demand side of high-energy cities in the future The relaxation policy will continue to be implemented, and will focus on the adjustment of loan restrictions and purchase restrictions to promote the healthy and stable development of the industry.