Beijing, August 8 (ZXS) -- The latest announcement of China's loan market quotation rate (LPR) in August on the 21st showed another asymmetric interest rate cut: the 21-year LPR was cut by 8 basis points; LPR over 1 years remains unchanged.
LPR with a term of more than 5 years is the "anchor" of the mortgage interest rate, and the interest rate of China's housing loan is formed by adding points on the basis of LPR of more than 5 years. At a time when the official emphasis is on better meeting rigid and improved housing demand, why has the "anchor" of the August mortgage interest rate not been further adjusted?
Based on the views of a number of experts, three major signals were sent behind the unchanged LPR of more than 8 years in August:
First, this move may leave room for the reduction of interest rates on existing mortgages.
The People's Bank of China and other two departments have recently clearly proposed to "guide commercial banks to adjust the interest rate of existing personal housing loans in an orderly manner in accordance with the law".
Wen Bin, chief economist of China Minsheng Bank, believes that the adjustment of existing mortgage loan interest rates has been "on the string". Under the circumstance that the current residents' investment and asset allocation behaviors have changed, and the interest rates of newly issued housing loans have been significantly lowered but the effect is relatively limited, the reduction of existing mortgage interest rates can better play the role of stabilizing expectations, stabilizing real estate and stabilizing credit, and can reduce the risk of idling arbitrage and standardize market order by reducing loan replacement behavior.
Since the beginning of this year, the interest rate differential between new and existing housing loans has increased. According to agency statistics, the lowest interest rate of the first home loan in major cities has dropped to 3.6%, but the interest rate of the existing first home loan is basically above 5%, and some cities are even as high as 6%.
Wen Bin believes that in the current environment where the interest rate of newly issued loans has fallen to a historical low, the space for policies in various places is large, and the bank interest rate spread continues to be under pressure, in order to maintain the reasonable profit level of banks, the LPR quotation of more than 5 years remains unchanged to reserve space for the acceleration of the implementation of existing housing loan interest rates.
Wang Xiaochang, chief analyst of Zhuge Data Research Center, also believes that the unchanged LPR of more than 5 years may indicate that the current official pricing relationship between incremental and existing mortgage interest rates. At present, there is a large interest rate difference between the incremental and existing mortgage interest rates, and the expectation of the reduction of the stock interest rate is gradually increasing.
Second, to solve the real estate market problem, we cannot rely on the reduction of mortgage interest rates alone.
Pang Ming, chief economist and director of research department of JLL Greater China, told China News Agency that at present, simply using monetary policy methods such as lowering mortgage interest rates cannot fundamentally solve the superposition of cyclical, structural and trend problems in the real estate market.
Research by the China Index Research Institute pointed out that in June this year, after the LPR of more than 6 years was lowered by 5 basis points, the short-term real estate market was expected to repair to a certain extent, but it did not completely change the adjustment trend of the real estate market. According to data from the Middle Index, in July, the transaction area of new houses in China's key 10 cities fell by nearly 7% month-on-month, and a year-on-year decrease of more than 100%. Since August, sales in key cities have not improved. This may mean that in addition to the interest rate cut, more property market policies can be coordinated to optimize in order to promote the expected substantial repair of the property market.
Li Yujia, chief researcher of the Housing Policy Research Center of Guangdong Urban Planning Institute, believes that since the second quarter, the effect of stimulating rigid demand and improving housing demand through LPR reduction has declined. Compared with the adjustment of LPR for more than 5 years, what is more important at present is the recovery of residents' income and employment expectations.
Third, there is still room for interest rate cuts in mortgage interest rates.
The China Index Research Institute pointed out that at present, LPR with a maturity of more than 5 years is the lowest level since the "anchor" of mortgage interest rates in 2019, and the interest rate of the first home loan in some cities has dropped to 3.6%, which is close to the lowest limit in history (the medium and long-term loan interest rate fell to 2015.4% at the end of 9, and the lowest mortgage interest rate was 3% off the benchmark interest rate, that is: 43.<>%). Overall, there is little room for LPR downward adjustments.
But that doesn't mean there is no room for mortgage rates to fall. The China Index Research Institute believes that in the future, more cities with high pressure on house price adjustment may reduce mortgage interest rates and reduce the cost of buying houses by lowering the number of points. For example, recently, Xiamen introduced a housing loan interest rate optimization policy, and from August 8, the lower limit of Xiamen second-home loan interest rate was adjusted from LPR+17 basis points for more than 5 years to LPR+80 basis points. In addition, the reduction of interest rates on existing housing loans is expected to strengthen, which is expected to further release the consumption potential of residents.
According to the statistics of the Shell Research Institute, the average first and second home loan interest rates in China's 8 cities in August were basically the same as the previous month, maintaining a historical low. After August 8, some cities adjusted their mortgage interest rates, and it is expected that the average mortgage interest rate in 15 cities will fall in September. (End)