Although there was a lot of positive news about the property market on the policy side throughout February, the top 100 real estate companies handed over a dismal sales data due to the downward trend of the market and the coldness of returning home during the Spring Festival. Real estate stocks fell.
According to statistics from relevant institutions, the sales volume of the top 100 real estate companies in February this year dropped by 47% year-on-year, and the transaction volume of the first-, second-, third- and fourth-tier cities fell across the board.
The threshold value of the top ten real estate companies dropped to 20 billion, and the threshold value of the top 100 real estate companies dropped to 2.1 billion, both of which were cut in half.
Crane Research Center believes that the market background has fundamentally changed compared with 2008 and 2014, the current policy relaxation is far from enough to reverse the market decline, and the downward pressure on the market in March is still large.
Some second-tier cities are almost shut down
Real estate suffered a dismal February in sales due to the sluggish market during the Spring Festival this year.
According to CRIC's statistics, the top 100 real estate companies in the whole month only achieved a sales volume of 401.58 billion yuan, a decrease of 24% from January and a decrease of 47% from the same period last year. is reduced by 57%.
In terms of full-scale sales, the top ten among the top 100 real estate companies from January to February this year were Country Garden, Vanke, Sunac, Poly, China Shipping, China Merchants Shekou, China Resources Land, Gemdale, Greentown, and Longfor. In the February list, Evergrande and Jinmao were eliminated in the top ten, while Greentown and Longfor made up.
However, the barriers to entry into the top ten are significantly lower.
From January to February last year, the minimum sales scale threshold for entering the top ten real estate companies was 40 billion yuan, and this year only 20 billion yuan remained (that is, the sales of the tenth Longfor).
Country Garden, which ranked first, had a full-caliber sales of 92.3 billion yuan from January to February this year, a year-on-year decrease of 24%; Vanke achieved sales of 64.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 44%; Sunac achieved 50.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 26%.
Statistics from the China Index Research Institute show that in the first two months of this year, there were 30 housing companies with sales exceeding 10 billion yuan, a decrease of 24 from the same period last year; 26 housing companies with sales exceeding 5 billion yuan, a decrease of 16 from the same period last year.
The threshold value of the top 100 real estate companies is 2.09 billion yuan, which is also cut in half.
Regarding the dismal performance of the top 100 real estate companies in February, Kerui said that due to the epidemic and the lack of confidence in the industry during the Spring Festival, the overall market supply and demand and transactions showed no signs of warming, and the transaction area of 28 key monitored cities fell by 32% month-on-month. , down 35% year-on-year.
The enthusiasm of enterprises to promote and market is generally not high, and the transaction has hit a new monthly low in recent years.
In terms of energy levels, the first-tier cities saw a decline in transactions across the board, mainly due to the sluggish supply in February, and the transaction volume fell by 42% month-on-month. Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen all recorded new lows, with a year-on-year decline of around 40%.
An extreme example on the supply side is Shenzhen, where the supply of new projects is almost cut off.
Among the first-tier cities, only the Shanghai market has continued to heat up, and the average clearance rate of newly opened projects is close to 60%. The price-limited projects in the core areas can still achieve "sunlight", and the transaction volume has increased by 33% year-on-year.
The second- and third-tier cities continued to cool down, with transactions down 37% and 29% on the same period and month-on-month respectively. Among them, nearly 40% of the second- and third-tier cities saw their transactions halved year-on-year.
Some cities have been greatly affected by the epidemic, such as Suzhou and Hangzhou, where the market almost came to a standstill in February.
There are also cities that are under too much downward pressure, such as Nanning and Dongguan, whose transactions have fallen by more than 70% year-on-year.
And the third- and fourth-tier cities that are counting on returning to their hometowns in the spring to boost the property market have lost their abacus this year.
According to CRIC's actual research, this year's return to hometown to buy property is significantly weaker than in previous years, and the actual conversion rate of customers visiting the case site is generally lower than 10%.
The China Index Research Institute believes that in February this year, 90% of the second- and third-tier cities in China's super cities saw a decline in transactions, and Suzhou fell significantly by 53%, followed by Fuzhou, and Wuhan ranked third.
Overseas bond issuance plummeted by 95%
Due to factors such as poor real estate sales data in February, on February 28, the A-share real estate sector and the Hong Kong stock Chinese real estate sector suffered heavy losses.
On the afternoon of the 28th, Sunac China once fell by more than 17%, and finally closed down 16.34% at HK$6.40 per share, the largest decline since 2022.
Sunac's share price has almost halved since the beginning of the year.
However, Sunac is not an exception. Among the 143 Hong Kong stocks and mainland property stocks yesterday, 81 stocks fell, Mingfa Group, Zhengrong Real Estate, Jianye Real Estate, and China Jinmao fell more than 5%.
Since the beginning of the year, the share price of Zhengrong Real Estate has fallen by more than 80%, and the share price of Logan Group has fallen by more than 60%.
In terms of A shares, the real estate sector fell by 0.7% yesterday, Sunshine City fell by 4%, and Seazen Holdings fell by 3%.
From a policy perspective, a lot of positive signals were released in February. For example, the national supervision measures for the pre-sale funds of commercial housing were formulated and promulgated in early February, which can relieve the pressure on capital turnover of housing enterprises.
In addition, policies such as the exclusion of M&A loans from the "three red lines" and the exclusion of affordable rental housing loans from the concentration management of real estate loans have also attracted great attention from the market.
Recently, many provinces and cities have loosened the regulation of the property market, including reducing the down payment ratio and relaxing provident fund loans.
However, whether it is from the market sales data or from the stock price of housing companies, these policies have not yet made housing companies feel obvious warmth.
Kerui believes that although the policy has eased and improved recently, in terms of the current market situation, the real estate market is still facing greater downward pressure in the short term, and the overall increase in transactions in March is limited.
In terms of financing, although favorable new policies have also been introduced, the financing of most real estate companies is still limited in practice. From January to February 2022, the issuance of bonds by typical real estate companies in the industry has not ushered in significant changes, especially private housing companies. , much lower than the same period of the previous year.
At present, the newly issued bonds are still dominated by state-owned assets, and the total amount of bonds issued accounts for nearly 50%.
According to the statistics of the China Index Research Institute, in February this year, the issuance scale of real estate enterprise credit bonds and overseas bonds decreased significantly year-on-year, of which the issuance scale of credit bonds was 25.02 billion yuan, down 8% year-on-year; the scale of overseas bond issuance by mainland real estate enterprises was 1.58 billion yuan. It fell 83% month-on-month and 95% year-on-year.
Kerui believes that housing companies will still face huge debt repayment pressure, and brand housing companies have successively exploded in debt, resulting in a serious lack of market confidence, and residents' expectations for housing purchases have further weakened.