"Three Red Lines" and centralized management reflect the continuity of housing finance policy.
Since the third quarter of 2020, the financial supervision department has taken a series of targeted adjustment measures for real estate financing. There are "three red lines" ahead, which put forward new requirements for the level and structure of assets and liabilities of housing enterprises; Later, the Notice on the Concentration of Real Estate Loans of Banking Financial Institutions (hereinafter referred to as the Notice) was issued, which put forward requirements for the structure of bank real estate loans, including appropriately controlling the scale of residents' housing loans and strictly preventing the illegal use of consumer loans and down payment loans. Strengthen the financing control of housing enterprises, including loans, trusts and domestic and foreign bond financing. In the past few years, the leverage ratio of the housing sector has increased rapidly, and the loan-to-value ratio LTV has increased from 0.29 in 20 17 to 0.34 in 2020. The "three red lines" and centralized management reflect the continuity of the housing finance policy of the regulatory authorities, and are important measures to improve China's macro-prudential management system and improve the long-term mechanism of real estate finance management.
Since 20 19, the growth rate of personal mortgage loans of banks has further slowed down. In 2020, the national personal mortgage loan was 3 trillion, up 9.9% year-on-year, and the growth rate was 5.2 percentage points lower than that of 20 19. The growth rate of personal mortgage loans has been lower than the growth rate of RMB loan balance of financial institutions in the same period 12.5%. Since 20 16 years, the proportion of new personal loans to new loans of financial institutions has dropped from 19.3% to 13.4%, and the balance of personal housing loans is less than 20%. It can be seen that there is no need to significantly reduce the balance of mortgage and significantly slow down the growth rate of mortgage. The main purpose of the centralized management policy of real estate loans in banking financial institutions is to establish a standardized management framework. For a long time, the proportion of real estate development loans in the whole loan has been at a low level of around 7%, but it has not changed much in recent years, and mortgage loans have risen rapidly. Considering the loan quality (non-performing rate) comprehensively, compared with individual housing loans, the proportion of real estate developers' loans has little room for decline. In the future, under the management of "three red lines", the leverage ratio of some real estate enterprises will be at a high level, the growth of debt scale will slow down, and more diversified financing methods will be sought, especially in the field of direct financing. In the future, the growth rate of commercial banks' real estate development loans will slow down, and its proportion in bank credit balance will decline in steady operation.
The influence of three red lines controlling the leverage level of housing enterprises on the market is to shrink supply, but it can't control housing prices. On the contrary, it may be that the slowdown in supply is not conducive to curbing the rise in housing prices. Therefore, it is obvious that the measures of the three red lines cannot be understood as controlling the rise in housing prices and bubbles. The important policy intention of this measure is to control the financial risk of real estate by reasonably controlling the leverage level of real estate enterprises.
Judging from the financial reports in the first three quarters of 2020 disclosed by listed banks, the growth rate of housing-related loans of most banks has maintained double-digit growth in the past few years, and personal housing loans of some banks have exceeded the corresponding standards. Banks that step on the red line will make corresponding adjustments in the next 2-4 years. While controlling the growth rate of new personal housing credit, we should appropriately reduce the stock to meet the regulatory requirements. From the information of listed banks and the open market, the scale of banks that need to adjust housing-related loans is relatively limited, and the balance of real estate loans involved accounts for about a quarter of the balance of housing-related loans of the whole financial institution, mainly concentrated in several large and medium-sized Chinese banks such as China Construction Bank, Postal Savings Bank, China Merchants Bank, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank and Xingye. According to the calculation, assuming that the overall loan growth rate of these banks runs smoothly, the average housing-related loans of banks will increase or decrease by10 billion to15 billion in 20021year, accounting for 5%- 10% of their respective housing-related loans and1%-3 of their respective bank loan balances. However, more banks have not stepped on the red line, and objectively there is the possibility of filling the vacancy. It can be seen that the centralized management policy of the regulatory authorities will not bring about a significant decline in the growth rate and proportion of real estate loans. From this perspective, the centralized policy is more standardized, focusing on long-term risk management considerations, rather than achieving the purpose of controlling housing prices in the short term.
According to the above judgment, the probability of a sharp rise in mortgage interest rate is also small. The average interest rate of the first home loan in 5438+ 10 was lower than that in February 2020 1 basis point. Considering the requirement of reducing the financing cost of the real economy and the "no sharp turn" strategy adopted by the central bank's monetary policy, it is unlikely that the benchmark interest rate LPR will be raised in the short to medium term. Referring to the previous performance during the tightening of housing-related loans, the housing finance policy may remain neutral in the next 6- 12 months, mainly targeting Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai and other regions. Where the price increase is relatively large and the housing-related loans grow rapidly, they will be tightened appropriately.
Multi-pronged approach to improve structural problems
In 2020, the Central Economic Work Conference clearly stated for the first time that it is necessary to solve the problem of insufficient housing supply in big cities, continue to implement the "policy for the city", and promote the stable and healthy development of the real estate market. For a long time, the mismatch between people and land in the domestic real estate market is the primary reason for the high housing prices in some cities. Recent statistics show that local governments are implementing the policy concept of "implementing policies according to the city". In 2020, the land supply area of first-tier cities will increase by 33% year-on-year, which is significantly higher than that of second-tier (9%) and third-tier (2%) cities.
During the "Fourteenth Five-Year Plan" period, China will strengthen the construction of housing security system and effectively expand the supply of affordable rental housing. Taking Shanghai as an example, the 14th Five-year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of Shanghai and the Outline of Long-term Goals in 2035 proposed that 53,000 rental houses would be added in 20021year, and more than 400,000 rental houses would be supplied by 2025.
There is a strong correlation between the rise and fall of house prices and the growth rate of housing-related loans. In the future, housing financial regulation will focus more on key cities and highlight structural characteristics, rather than "one size fits all". Under the central government's policy of "housing and not speculating", the real estate market regulation policy will continue to be strictly regulated. Especially in structure, reasonable adjustment of housing-related loans of large and medium-sized commercial banks in hot cities will play a key role in alleviating local housing financial risks. 65438+1From October 27th, the mortgage prices of the four major banks in Guangzhou rose across the board, and the overall mortgage interest rate was raised by 15 basis points.
At the local government level, in accordance with the principle of "policy according to the city", we will continue to take control measures such as restricting purchases, loans and prices for hot cities, list the land use indicators for rental housing separately, and increase the supply and construction of rental housing; Policies are introduced from both ends of supply and demand, with the main goal of stabilizing the operation of the real estate market. Major popular cities include Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Xiamen and Nanjing. Corresponding control policies have been introduced to implement comprehensive management in the fields of land, sales and credit. In the future, the main line of policy will focus on the establishment of norms and long-term mechanisms, which will achieve better policy results than the previous emphasis on the regulation of financial aggregates.
(I thought that the real estate financial supervision policy was intended to establish a standardized and long-term mechanism. The authors are chief economist and dean of Zhixin Investment Research Institute and senior researcher of Zhixin Investment Research Institute respectively. )