Real estate picking up？ The policy of many places is showing signs of loosening, and the real estate in the ＂black iron age＂ is clearing out and differentiating.
China Economic Weekly reporter Li Yonghua | Hunan Report
"After the Spring Festival, some customers came to see the house slowly. Before the Chinese New Year, it was really deserted, and I didn’t get a suite for two months. " On February 27th, a second-hand housing consultant in Changsha told the reporter of China Economic Weekly.
In the new housing market, the "Japanese CD" appeared again in Changsha, and a single set of real estate with a transaction price of 5 million was robbed.
At the policy level, many cities across the country have released signs of loosening real estate regulation. Shandong Heze took the lead in reducing the down payment ratio of new home loans to 20%. Since then, Chongqing, Jiangxi Ganzhou, Guangdong Foshan and other places have successively lowered the down payment ratio.
At the same time, the mortgage interest rate has been lowered in many places. As a first-tier city, the trend of Guangzhou has attracted much attention. According to public information, six major banks, including workers, peasants, China Communications Construction and Postal Savings Bank, lowered the mortgage interest rate in Guangzhou. Among them, the first home loan interest rate was lowered from 5.6% to 5.4%, and the second home loan interest rate was lowered from 5.8% to 5.6%.
Stimulated by many good news, can the real estate market usher in Xiaoyangchun?
Photography: Xiao Yi, chief photojournalist of China Economic Weekly.
Do not regard real estate as a tool and means to stimulate the economy in the short term, and strengthen the expected guidance.
"About the overall consideration of 2022. We still unswervingly adhere to ‘ A house is for living, not for speculation ’ Positioning, do not use real estate as a tool and means to stimulate the economy in the short term, strengthen the expected guidance, and promote the virtuous circle and healthy development of the real estate industry because of the city’s policy. " On February 24th, Ni Hong, Vice Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, made the above remarks on the overall policy direction of real estate this year at the press conference held by the State Council Office to promote the high-quality development of housing and urban-rural construction.
Since the second half of 2021, a number of housing enterprises have experienced debt crises, and the expected weakening has become a major pressure on the development of the real estate market. Strengthening the expected guidance has become one of the key points of real estate regulation this year.
According to media reports, also on February 24th, ten bond issuers of real estate enterprises, including Poly Development, Longhu Group and gemdale, took the initiative to publicly disclose information on their business conditions. Judging from the public financial data, these 10 housing enterprises are undoubtedly "excellent students" and their balance sheets are quite good.
It is worth noting that the voluntary public disclosure of information is not a rigid requirement of the trust system, and collective action highlights a strong signal of calling out the market and boosting confidence.
However, many real estate business people contacted by China Economic Weekly admitted that the current market confidence is still insufficient and expectations are weak.
"Buyers are still waiting to see more. Even if our price has been reduced to a loss, people who buy houses still think that they will continue to cut prices." The general manager of a real estate project in Hunan told the reporter of China Economic Weekly.
Regarding the overall judgment of real estate, Vanke, which ranks first in the industry, is pessimistic. On January 9th, at Vanke’s 2022 Annual Meeting, Yu Liang, Chairman of Vanke’s Board of Directors, judged that in 2022, the first feature of the industry is to enter the stage of shrinking the table and clearing it, and shrinking the table and clearing it is a battle of life and death, either dead or alive, with no intermediate state.
Yu Liang also believes that the scale of the real estate industry will begin to shrink in the future, and proposes that the industry will enter the "black iron age".
In this regard, Hu Baosen, chairman of Jianye Group, echoed: "In fact, this is a description or a metaphor, and now it has been ‘ Lie flat ’ For enterprises, it is estimated that even the black iron era is not. " He also made it clear that the current strategy of Jianye Group is "less, small and good" and "no longer pursuing excessive growth in scale".
RealData believes that in 2021, the risk of housing enterprises broke out intensively, the wait-and-see mood in the capital market still exists, the risk has not been completely cleared, and the market confidence has not been fully restored.
The data in January was really depressed, and even the leading enterprises had a hard time.
According to the sales briefing of Poly Development in January, in January, the company achieved a contracted area of 1,857,600 square meters, a year-on-year decrease of 11.73%; The contracted amount was 28.302 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 34.29%. In the "Announcement on the Progress and Recent Operation of Corporate Bonds Registration and Issuance" issued on February 24th, Poly Development stated that these data were "basically consistent with the overall performance of the market".
Poly’s development is indeed "basically consistent with the overall performance of the market". According to the data of Kerui Research Institute, in January, the sales volume of TOP100 housing enterprises reached 525.6 billion yuan, and the monthly performance scale decreased by 39.6% year-on-year, which was 43% lower than the monthly average level in 2021. According to the data of the Central Finger Research Institute, in January, the average sales of TOP100 housing enterprises was 6.18 billion yuan, down 23.1% year-on-year.
In the "black iron age", the market has accelerated its clearing and differentiation.
While the market is expected to weaken, in 2022, the debt repayment pressure of various housing enterprises is still not small.
As a central enterprise, Poly Development is the leader in outstanding performance of various financial indicators. Nevertheless, by the end of the third quarter of 2021, the balance of interest-bearing liabilities of Poly Development reached 341 billion yuan, including 4.999 billion yuan of short-term loans, 52.012 billion yuan of non-current liabilities due within one year, 247.147 billion yuan of long-term loans and 36.843 billion yuan of bonds payable. Poly Development said that "the company has a reasonable debt structure, strong fund management ability and high solvency".
RealData released the financing report of housing enterprises in January, saying that 2022 is still the peak year for housing enterprises to pay their debts, and the total amount of bonds due during the year is close to one trillion yuan. On the financing side, in January 2022, the domestic and overseas bond financing of housing enterprises totaled about 48.1 billion yuan, a sharp drop of 70% year-on-year.
Under pressure, various enterprises choose to clear up, and Vanke is the representative in this respect. Yu Liang said: "Don’t be illusory, you must clear it quickly and resolutely."
While clearing, it is the differentiation of the market.
Residential and non-residential are diverging. "The house is still good to sell, and the rest are commercial." A person in charge of real estate marketing in Changsha said.
On February 24th, a teleconference on housing and urban-rural construction in Hunan Province was held. Lushan, director of the Housing and Construction Department of Hunan Province, said that one of the key tasks this year is to speed up non-residential destocking.
On October 28th, 2021, the Housing and Construction Department of Hunan Province issued "Several Opinions on Promoting the Inventory of Non-residential Commercial Houses", which fully resolved the pressure of non-residential inventory such as apartments, office buildings and shops from 10 aspects — — Strictly control the increment of non-residential land, accelerate the revitalization of non-residential commercial housing land stock, control the supply of non-residential commercial housing, promote the rental and sale of non-residential commercial housing, encourage non-residential commercial housing to be self-sustaining, reduce the transaction cost of non-residential commercial housing, reduce the use cost of apartment residents, increase financial support, establish a monitoring and supervision platform, and implement the responsibility of territorial subjects.
In the residential market, the demand for rigid improvement has become a hot spot in the market, and small and medium-sized units are cold and hot. China Economic Weekly reporter’s investigation and visit found that commercial and residential large flat floors in Changsha are generally selling well, with a construction area of 200-400 square meters, and some buildings have extra-large units exceeding 1,000 square meters, with a price of 20,000 yuan/m2.
Many property consultants have declared that "the bigger the better". This phenomenon not only appears in Changsha, but also in Beijing, Guangzhou, Hangzhou and other places.
Regional differentiation is also obvious. According to Hunan Statistics Bureau’s "Completion of Real Estate Development Investment in Hunan Province by Region in 2021", Changsha, the provincial capital, increased by 19.7%, while Zhuzhou and Xiangtan, which are both Changsha, Zhuzhou and Xiangtan urban agglomerations, all experienced negative growth, and Zhangjiajie, which was seriously affected by the epidemic, decreased by 28%. In the whole country, according to the reporter of China Economic Weekly, more than one leading developer’s development plan will not take land in third-and fourth-tier cities in the next few years, and it will shrink in an all-round way.
Dongxing Securities Research Report believes that low-energy cities are currently facing huge sales pressure and market confidence is seriously insufficient. It is expected that more cities with high sales pressure will introduce stability measures one after another in the future to gradually reverse the situation of falling sales volume and price.
In view of the recent measures to maintain stability, such as the downward adjustment of down payment ratio and the downward adjustment of mortgage interest rate, many institutions unanimously pointed out that the cities that have introduced the downward payment ratio are all non-restricted cities. According to the Southwest Securities Research Report, the sales decline in these cities is serious, and the house prices are not high. Although the policy of reducing the down payment ratio is expected to bring marginal improvement in the demand side, it is still difficult to reverse the downward trend of the market in the short term.
The real "tightening spell" of purchase restriction has not seen any signs of loosening. "People who buy a house now are either just in need or just changed, and there are basically no investors." The general manager of the above project said.
According to the transaction data of new houses in 16 major cities monitored by the Central Reference Institute, in February this year, the transaction volume of cities in each line decreased by 23.4% year-on-year and 31.3% month-on-month. Among them, the transaction area in Beijing decreased by 301,600 square meters, down by 31% year-on-year and down by 46% month-on-month. Shenzhen ranked second in decline, down 26% year-on-year and down 45.1% quarter-on-quarter; Guangzhou fell 22% year-on-year and 26% quarter-on-quarter.
