(Economic Watch) April real estate recovery "put on the brakes", how to follow the market?
Beijing, May 5 (ZXS) -- After a round of rapid recovery in the real estate market in February and March this year, the market performance in April "stepped on the brakes", and the pace of recovery in the real estate market slowed down significantly.
Data released by China's National Bureau of Statistics on the 17th showed that the month-on-month increase in house prices in 4 large and medium-sized cities fell overall in April, and the number of cities where the prices of new houses and second-hand houses rose month-on-month decreased compared with the previous month. Especially in the second-hand housing market, the cooling trend is more obvious. Among the 70 cities, 70 cities with month-on-month increases in second-hand housing prices decreased by 21; Second-hand housing prices in second- and third-tier cities are now "stopping".
Behind the lackluster rise in house prices is a slowdown in property sales. Since late March, the recovery of real estate sales in major cities has also slowed significantly. According to agency statistics, the sales area of real estate in key cities fell by 3%-25% month-on-month.
In addition, the official real estate development investment, new housing construction area and other indicators reflecting the supply side fell year-on-year, and the real estate market showed a weakening momentum of recovery.
After two consecutive months of sharp recovery, the heat of the property market has declined, what does this mean? What will happen to the real estate market in the future?
The analysis believes that there are three major trends worth paying attention to:
First, China's real estate market is still in the adjustment stage.
Fu Linghui, spokesman of the National Bureau of Statistics and director of the Department of Comprehensive Statistics of the National Economy, pointed out a few days ago that although the demand for the real estate market has shown signs of recovery, real estate investment and development and construction are still declining, and the real estate market as a whole is in a period of adjustment.
According to the data released by the official in the past two days, there was a hot and cold differentiation between the sales side and the supply side of the real estate market in April. Sales continued to pick up, and China's commercial residential sales area and year-on-year sales growth expanded from January to April; The absolute scale of new commercial residential sales nationwide is only lower than the peak level in the same period in 4. However, the supply side of land acquisition, investment, and new construction starts is still cooling. The improvement of the sales side is not transmitted to the supply side, and the feedback lag between the two ends is long, which means that there are still links that have not been opened.
Li Yujia, chief researcher of the Housing Policy Research Center of Guangdong Urban Planning Institute, believes that the constraints on the supply side are that some enterprise risk disposal and debt repayment have not yet been completed, resulting in low enthusiasm for developers to acquire land and start construction as a whole.
Second, the general trend of stable recovery in the real estate market has not changed.
How to view the slowdown of the phased recovery of the property market? Liu Lijie, a market analyst at Shell Research Institute, believes that after the concentrated release of market demand in the first quarter, the market transaction volume fell seasonally, and the price increase narrowed month-on-month, which is a natural decline and adjustment in the process of market repair, and is a normal oscillation in the process of market repair to a reasonable center.
Chen Xiao, a senior analyst at Zhuge Data Research Center, believes that after a sharp recovery in the first two months, the real estate market has shifted from a strong recovery to a weak repair stage. She expects that the market is likely to continue to operate steadily in May, and the fluctuation range will not be too large compared with April.
It should be noted that the real estate market in first-tier cities was still "firm" in April, showing strong resilience, which will provide support for the continued recovery of the subsequent market. Zhang Bo, president of 4 Anjuke Research Institute, pointed out that in April, the month-on-month increase in new house prices in first-tier cities expanded slightly; Second-hand house prices also maintained month-on-month growth.
"This year's property market recovery started from the first and second tiers of hot spots," Zhang Bo said, especially in first-tier cities, where the heat of the property market has been transmitted to the land market. For example, the turnover of Shanghai's first batch of centralized land supply this year reached 519.6 billion yuan, and the number of participating enterprises reached the highest number in the past six years. He believes that the future fluctuation of housing prices in first-tier cities will show the characteristics of "small amplitude and unchanged upward trend".
Li Zhan, chief economist of the research department of China Merchants Fund, believes that in the medium and long term, the stabilization and improvement of real estate within the year is a high probability event, especially the economic recovery in 2023 will drive the real estate recovery. Considering factors such as the residents' confidence in buying houses and their willingness to repair, he tends to believe that the real estate market will show a gradual recovery within the year, and the pace of recovery in different cities and regions will be differentiated.
Third, there is still room for follow-up policies in various places.
Since April, the property market has continued to boost policies, with key cities such as Zhengzhou, Hangzhou and Hefei narrowing the scope of purchase restrictions, Shanghai raising the loan limit of housing provident fund for multi-child families, and Beijing Fangshan issuing a policy to attract talents and gathering talents.
Liu Lijie believes that the official has clearly supported rigid and improved housing demand under the premise of "housing is not speculation", and it is expected that the short-term housing policy will remain loose and continue to take effect, which will help promote the stable repair of market volume and price.
Chen Wenjing, director of market research at the China Index Research Institute, believes that in the second quarter, local property market policies may continue to be optimized, such as suburbs with high inventory in key first- and second-tier cities or in accordance with the principle of "one district, one policy", optimizing purchase restrictions and "housing and loan" policies; Combined with the birth policy, support is given to the number of limited purchase units, down payment ratio, and mortgage interest rate for families with more than two children. (End)