Last year, the real estate market underwent a deep adjustment, and the performance of real estate enterprises was generally dismal. With the support of a series of policies since the fourth quarter of last year, market transactions have rebounded this year. How to view the current and future market situation is a hot issue that has attracted much attention at this year's real estate enterprise results conference.
According to the content of the Securities Times reporter combing the results conference of many real estate companies, the executives of real estate companies unanimously believe that the most difficult time has passed, and the current market is recovering moderately, but not all cities are recovering synchronously; Although volume fell slightly in March, it was still better than the same period last year. For this year's market trend, many real estate executives expressed cautious optimism, believing that the market is still facing a lot of pressure, there may be fluctuations, if the policy continues to exert force, sales will be the fastest or stabilize in the second quarter. More senior executives of real estate companies said optimistically that the market is stable and good in the short term, and firm and good in the long term.
The current market is still recovering moderately
The market recovered in February this year and achieved a good start. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the year-on-year decline in the sales area of commercial residential buildings nationwide in January ~ February narrowed sharply, and sales increased year-on-year for the first time since last year.
Regarding the current market situation, Mo Bin, executive director and president of Country Garden, believes that the most difficult time must have passed, and we can see that the market's expectations and confidence are recovering.
"2022 is a year of bottoming, and there is a reshuffle and change pattern between housing companies and the market. We preliminarily judge that last year's bottoming has passed and has begun to enter the recovery stage. Zhang Yadong, chairman of the board of Greentown China, said.
Zhang Xuzhong, executive director and senior vice president of Longfor Group, also said that the overall number of visits and transactions in key cities in February was gradually increasing. But he also pointed out that it will take some time for residents and consumer confidence to recover, and not all cities are picking up in tandem. Overall, the market of first-tier cities and key second-tier cities such as Hangzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan and Xi'an is relatively stable, while non-key cities continue to be under pressure.
Although market transactions rebounded in February, the market fell back in March, which some market views call "spring cold".
For the phenomenon of falling transactions in March, Li Jun, vice president of Greentown China, believes that the average daily number of visits to existing projects in March has been slightly adjusted, mainly because Jinan, Shijiazhuang, Hangzhou and other cities with higher growth rates in February gradually stabilized after the release of concentrated demand, while external competitors increased, and some projects raised prices, but the overall number of visits was still significantly better than in the fourth quarter of last year and January this year.
"The number of customer visits fell in March, and the transaction volume fell to a certain extent, but the transaction volume in March still increased compared with the same period last year." Wang Quanhui, executive director and vice president of Midea Real Estate, said.
Zhang Dawei, chief operating officer of China Resources Land, also believes that although visits and transactions fell slightly in March, it still maintained a recovery trend, and the real estate recovery was mainly reflected in first- and second-tier hot cities, and other second-tier cities were still in the stage of slow recovery, and most of the third- and fourth-tier cities showed no obvious signs of rebound.
Yu Liang, chairman of the board of Vanke, who has always been cautious, pointed out that there are two more extreme views in the current market, one is that it is now a stage of madness, and the other is that it is a spring cold. But in his view, the current new housing market is still in a moderate recovery stage.
Liu Ping, chairman of Poly Development, also believes that considering the improvement of buyers' purchasing power and income expectations, and the restoration of confidence in the industry, it will take time, and the recovery of the market still needs to wait and see.
This year's market is "stable and improving"
The recovery of the market is inseparable from the support of policies, and at this year's results conference, a number of real estate executives expressed the central government's support for the industry this year.
Zhang Xuzhong pointed out that the tone set by the two associations for the entire industry is to stabilize growth, control risks, and promote demand, and it can be seen that the central government's attitude towards supporting the healthy development of the industry is very clear and resolute, and it will also support high-quality head enterprises, support reasonable rigid and improved housing demand, and strengthen the housing security system.
Li Jun also said that the basic positioning of the central government's "housing instead of speculation" remains unchanged, the regulatory authorities continue to optimize the supply and demand policies, the demand-side support policies continue to make efforts, and the cost of residents' housing purchase is further reduced, promoting the release of demand for rigid and improved housing. The financing support of the "three arrows" on the supply side provides more financial support for housing enterprises. Since the beginning of the year, various policies have been introduced to stimulate the market, such as: optimizing the purchase restriction policy, reducing the down payment ratio, increasing the amount of provident fund loans, issuing housing purchase subsidies, reducing the sales limit, and reducing transaction taxes. In terms of market trends, sales volume and prices have stabilized, and there has been a recovery trend in February, if the policy continues to exert force, sales will stabilize at the fastest or in the second quarter.
However, for the judgment of this year's market trend, executives of real estate companies such as China Resources Land and Greentown China are cautiously optimistic.
Zhang Dawei believes that this year's market is still facing a lot of pressure, and there may be fluctuations in the future, and the market as a whole will show a trend of differentiation and stable recovery.
Guo Jiafeng, CEO of Greentown China, also believes that although the market has recovered in February and March, it cannot be used to determine that in the new year, the real estate market has gone up since then, and he is cautiously optimistic about the market. Li Jun also said that if the macro economy continues to improve and residents' confidence in buying houses recovers, the recovery of the real estate market this year is a high probability event, but the country may still face uneven hot and cold conditions, and need to actively respond.
For future market trends, executives of real estate companies such as Midea Real Estate and Yuexiu Real Estate are optimistic.
Wang Quanhui believes that with the comprehensive liberalization of epidemic prevention and control, including the implementation of various policies of the central government for economic recovery, the central and local support policies for real estate continue to increase, and the confidence and expectations of enterprises and residents for economic recovery are gradually improving, and the market is stable and good in the short term and firm in the long run.
Lin Zhaoyuan, chairman of Yuexiu Real Estate, also said that with the help of the policy, the company's prediction of the overall market this year is "stable and good".
In the long run, Zhang Yadong is also optimistic about real estate in the long term and continues to be optimistic about the market.
Liu Ping also believes that in the medium and long term, the fundamentals supporting the continued improvement of the real estate industry have not changed. The real estate industry is in a critical period from "scale expansion" to "high-quality development", and will generally show new characteristics of "trend repair, structural optimization, and kinetic energy conversion". Housing enterprises will shift from rapid growth in scale to reasonable growth in business scale and effective improvement of operation quality.
Yu Liang pointed out that the future market demand has a ceiling and a bottom line. From the perspective of the speed of population movement and housing improvement, as long as the external environment does not undergo sudden changes, there will still be an annual demand of 12.<> billion square meters for a period of time. Companies need to recognise the big picture, and the industry will never return to a stage where it is too dependent on residential development. For large enterprises, it is an inevitable choice to pay equal attention to development and operation services. (Securities Times)