(Economic Observation) "Market stabilization" policies in many places frequently sacrifice China's real estate market now with two-way regulation
China News Service, Beijing, October 12 (Reporter Pang Wuji) Recently, China's real estate market has seen a rare situation where two opposite policies of "controlling housing prices" and "stabilizing the property market" simultaneously appeared.
On the one hand, cities such as Harbin provided relief for real estate companies from the supply side, or provided subsidies for purchases of houses to stabilize the property market, while cities such as Dongguan issued policies on the reference price of second-hand houses to control the excessively rapid rise in housing prices.
On October 10, Harbin, a city with a population of tens of millions, introduced 16 measures to stabilize the property market.
For example, by slightly relaxing the pre-sale conditions and the return of regulatory funds, adjusting the land value-added tax pre-collection rate and the payment time of land transaction prices, etc., the pressure on corporate liquidity can be alleviated.
In addition, Harbin provides subsidies to talents with college degree or above and new citizens to purchase their first homes. At the same time, it relaxes the loan period of second-hand housing provident fund.
The release of this policy is directly related to the recent rapid cooling of the property market.
According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, since April this year, the price of new houses in Harbin has continued to fall year-on-year, and the decline has expanded to 0.6% in August.
In September, the property market was completely frozen due to the impact of the epidemic.
This kind of short-term relief policy does not mean a comprehensive relaxation or shift in regulation.
In the view of Li Yujia, the chief researcher of the Guangdong Housing Policy Research Center, Harbin’s policy is to rescue the supply side instead of stimulating the demand side.
The design of this policy focuses on tapping out potential housing demand and promoting it in concert with population, industry, and urbanization. It is not a return to the old path of simply stimulating the property market.
Industry insiders believe that this policy in Harbin is relatively restrained, with little effort, and will not cause drastic fluctuations in the property market.
Li Yujia also pointed out that as long as the house purchase interest rate does not decrease, the leverage ratio does not change, the loan concentration policy does not change, transaction taxes and fees do not change, and adjustments within local jurisdictions do not affect the overall situation.
In addition to Harbin, several cities have recently fine-tuned their home purchase policies.
For example: Shenyang recently increased the first-time housing subsidy for talents.
Currently, Changchun, Dalian and other cities provide housing subsidies.
Since September, cities such as Zhongshan, Zhaoqing, Zhuhai, and Huizhou have also lowered their personal income tax on second-hand housing transactions.
According to statistics from the Central Plains Real Estate Research Center, more than 10 cities including Ezhou, Zhangjiakou, Heze, Yueyang, and Kunming have recently issued "restriction orders" to limit the decline in housing prices.
Another direction of regulation is still the tightening of targeted policies in hotspot cities.
On October 8, Dongguan City released the reference prices for second-hand housing transactions in 218 active communities in the city for the first time.
This measure is regarded as a "big move" to cool the second-hand housing market.
Prior to this, many cities including Shenzhen, Ningbo, and Shaoxing had issued reference prices for second-hand housing transactions.
A report released by 58.com and Anjuke pointed out that more than 10 cities have announced the housing reference price of second-hand housing, and the effect of regulation and control has begun to appear.
It can be seen from the listing prices of second-hand houses in September that the listing prices of Shenzhen, Ningbo, Shaoxing and Guangzhou have decreased month-on-month.
From January to September, according to the agency's statistics, the search for second-hand housing in China fell by 10.5% year-on-year. Among them, the search for second-hand housing fell by 23.8% year-on-year in the third quarter.
Why does the two-way regulation of the property market appear at the same time?
Li Yujia believes that the overall price index of 70 cities released by the National Bureau of Statistics is still rising.
In August, 59 out of 70 cities saw a year-on-year increase in new houses.
The development and sales of commercial housing across the country have maintained a double-digit growth trend. The sales growth rate of commercial housing from January to August this year reached nearly 23%.
At present, the industry still retains a certain temperature on the demand side, which is in the "high equilibrium" stage.
However, the real estate market in various regions is highly differentiated, and the phenomenon of unevenness of cold and hot is obvious.
Especially in recent months, financing has been tightened, credit risk events in the real estate industry have occurred frequently, the land market in some cities has drastically declined, and the real estate market has cooled rapidly.
For cities with weaker population absorption capacity, a rapid decline in the property market will trigger various risks.
Therefore, from the perspective of city-specific policy, moderately slow down the decline and adjust expectations have become the choice of some cities.
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