“The sound of thunder is heard during the Waking of Insects Festival, which wakes up dormant overwintering insects.” The “hinging” here refers to the small animals that hide in the soil after winter and do not drink or eat. The ancients in China believed that every During the Waking of Insects, spring thunder in the sky will wake them up, which means the resurrection of all things.
At this time, since the second half of 2021, the real estate industry, which has been completely cooled down due to multiple factors, has also heard bursts of spring thunder. However, this "spring thunder" is not to bring back the "real estate giants of the golden age", but to stabilize the declining market.
Nearly 50 cities’ property markets “implement city-specific policies”
As for the real estate sector, this year’s government work report mentioned “stabilizing land prices, stabilizing housing prices, stabilizing expectations, and implementing city-specific policies to promote the real estate industry” Virtuous circle and healthy development.”
In fact, some cities have made adjustments to real estate policies in different procedures in recent times. According to incomplete statistics from Zhongfang.com, the country has so far included Guangzhou, Chongqing, Fuzhou, Foshan, Dongguan, Wenzhou, Zhengzhou, Kunming, Baoding, Changchun, Guiyang, Jinzhong, Nanchang, Zhumadian, Tangshan, Yulin, Heze, Ganzhou, Nearly 50 cities (prefectures), including Nantong, Beihai, Nanning, Xinxiang, Zhuzhou, Dazhou, Nanchong, Nanxun, Quzhou, Tianmen, Xuancheng, etc., have adjusted their property market policies, including relaxing loan restrictions and purchase restrictions, reducing down payments, and relaxing down payment ratios. , increasing the provident fund loan limit, lowering mortgage interest rates, issuing home purchase subsidies, etc., market confidence has been further boosted.
As the first provincial capital city to relax loan and purchase restrictions this year, Zhengzhou’s intensity has become a hot spot of public concern. Zhengzhou requires financial institutions to increase the issuance of personal housing mortgage loans and lower housing loan interest rates. Substantively reduce the cost of home purchase and accelerate the bottoming out of the market in Zhengzhou.
Not only that, seven days after it explicitly canceled the "housing and loan subscription", it officially launched the "monetary resettlement work for large shanty town reconstruction projects" to further activate more housing consumption demand.
In addition to Zhengzhou, Nanchang also made adjustments to relevant policies in the early stage. In February, Nanchang announced the full opening of urban settlement, achieving zero threshold for settlement. Those with a college degree or above can buy a house without changing their household registration. They only need to provide a rental certificate and academic certificate.
Compared with Zhengzhou and Nanchang, more cities are making a fuss about provident funds. Help the market recover by reducing down payments, increasing loan limits, and lowering mortgage interest rates. Many banks in Anhui, Heze, Ganzhou, Zhumadian, Nantong and other places have lowered the down payment ratio of commercial loans for first-time buyers to as low as 20%. Ningbo, Ma'anshan, Zhuzhou, Nanning and other cities have raised the maximum housing provident fund loan limit. Among them, Ningbo stipulated that the maximum housing provident fund loan limit was increased from 600,000 yuan/household to 800,000 yuan/household. In addition, major banks in Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Hefei, Huizhou, Bengbu, Jinan and other cities have also lowered first-home loan interest rates.
In addition to the above, the forms of relaxation also include "withdrawal and loan of provident fund" and "issuance of housing purchase subsidies". For example, the new policy introduced by Dazhou stipulates that for those who use provident fund loans to purchase houses in central urban areas, after the depositor has left 5% of the loan limit in his or her provident fund account, he can apply to withdraw the account balance to pay the down payment, and implement both withdrawals and loans; Yulin It is stipulated that within the urban planning area (Yuzhou District, Yudong New District), new citizens who purchase their first commercial housing can enjoy a housing subsidy of 6,000-10,000 yuan per unit. In addition, Jimo has become the first city in the country to relax sales restrictions, and Xiamen has recently announced that it will no longer emphasize lottery for projects outside the island.
From the perspective of urban energy levels, this round of loosening of regulations is mainly in second-, third- and fourth-tier cities. The loosening of regulations in second-tier cities is mostly oriented towards destocking. Echoing this is the current market situation of high residential inventory and weak sales in such cities. Data from CRIC shows that the decomposition cycle in Zhengzhou’s main urban area will be 23 months in 2021, and the decomposition cycle in the suburbs will be as long as 43 months. A report provided by the Zhengzhou Branch of the Shell Research Institute believes that the generalized inventory transaction cycle in Greater Zhengzhou will take 8.3 years to digest.
The situation in some third- and fourth-tier cities is not optimistic either. CRIC's inventory report in 100 cities in January shows that the inventory depletion cycle of commercial housing in 66 third- and fourth-tier cities is as high as 21.09 months, which is gradually approaching the level during the epidemic in 2020 and is still growing steadily. Its year-on-year growth rate is at different levels. First in the middle. The decontamination cycle of 32 cities including Jinhua, Huizhou, Shantou, Quanzhou, Zhuhai, Lishui and Dongguan has been extended to more than 20 months. Among the general inventory in 100 cities, third- and fourth-tier cities account for more than 50%, and inventory risks are relatively high.
Industry insiders said that judging from recent policies, the overall policy relaxation this year will be much greater than in previous years. In particular, in some cities with downward market pressure, project delivery pressure, and high inventory risks, it is reasonable to introduce relatively strong easing policies. However, this series of adjustments itself cannot be completely regarded as policy relaxation, but a manifestation of city-specific policies and precise regulation.
Second-hand housing in some hot cities is now picking up
The spring thunder over the second-hand housing market has also been rumbling since the beginning of the year. According to incomplete statistics from Zhongfang.com, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Hefei, Huizhou, Heze, Bengbu and other cities have successively lowered interest rates on second home loans. Among them, Huizhou has the lowest second-home loan interest rate at 5.35%. This year, not only is the housing loan quota relatively abundant, but the pace of lending has also been further accelerated.
Data from the Shell Research Institute shows that the average loan cycle in the 103 key cities it monitors was 38 days in February, 12 days shorter than last month.
At the same time, the down payment ratio of housing provident fund loans for purchasing second homes in Nanning, Beihai, Fuzhou, Jinzhong, Zhuzhou and other places has been reduced from 50%-60% to 20%-40%. In addition, there is news that Zhengzhou will change the difference tax on second-hand housing from 20% to an approved 1%.
Affected by favorable factors and other factors, second-hand housing transactions in some hot cities have picked up, and the market is expected to show a phased decline and stabilization trend. According to data from the Shell Research Institute, the recovery in trading volume after the Spring Festival has accelerated compared with before the holiday, with demand in the Yangtze River Delta taking the lead in activating. In the three weeks after the holiday, the average weekly transaction volume of second-hand housing in Shell 50 cities increased by 11% compared with December last year. From a regional perspective, the release of demand in cities in the Yangtze River Delta has accelerated. In cities such as Wuhu, Nantong, Jiaxing, and Ningbo, the transaction volume in February increased by more than 20% month-on-month.
From a price point of view, second-hand housing prices have stopped falling, and cities in the Yangtze River Delta have taken the lead in rising prices. The second-hand housing price index in Shell 50 cities in February was the same as in January, ending the continuous downward trend since August last year. Looking at different regions, similar to the transaction performance, transaction prices in the Yangtze River Delta city cluster were the first to stop falling, while prices in first-tier cities rose slightly.
In fact, since the 2021 Political Bureau meeting of the Central Committee advocated "supporting reasonable housing needs," high-level officials have spoken out intensively, emphasizing the importance of meeting reasonable housing needs. This round of policy relaxation has begun to play a starring role, but the main tone is still to stabilize the property market. The market will not simply repeat the original development model. Relaxing policies for improved housing purchase demand is a response to "supporting reasonable housing demand" and is conducive to the release of improved housing demand. It also has positive significance in promoting a virtuous cycle and healthy development of the real estate industry.