It is worth noting that in March, four cities withdrew their new bailout policies, involving purchase restriction, down payment and business restriction. It can be seen that such restrictive policies cannot be broken.
In view of the gap between the current market recovery and the normal level of the market, the industry calls for policies to encourage real self-occupation and improved demand under the principle of "housing without speculation".
The policy focuses on "saving enterprises" and alleviating the pressure of cash flow.
Since the outbreak of COVID-19 epidemic, due to the closure of several underground sales offices and intermediary stores, the real estate market sales have been seriously hindered, and the cash flow of real estate enterprises has fallen into crisis. In order to "save the enterprise", local governments have introduced relevant support policies, such as loosening the housing purchase for talents, delaying the payment of provident fund, lowering the threshold for pre-sale of houses, and reducing taxes and fees.
According to incomplete statistics, in February, there were more than 40 cities in China. In view of the suspension of work and business at that time, support policies such as delaying the payment of land transfer fees and extending the start and completion time were introduced. Even in some areas, in order to alleviate the liquidity difficulties of enterprises, it is proposed that banks should not blindly lend, cut off loans and suppress loans.
In March, with the resumption of housing enterprises, more than a dozen provinces and cities continued to support the operation of housing enterprises, including first-tier cities such as Guangzhou, Shanghai and Shenzhen, and third-and fourth-tier cities such as Dongguan and Jiangmen.
It is worth mentioning that Wuhan, as the hardest hit area, has put forward measures such as relaxing the pre-sale permit and improving the efficiency of the use of pre-sale supervision funds in order to allow housing enterprises to resume work in an orderly manner and carry out marketing.
Zhang Dawei, chief analyst of Zhongyuan Real Estate, concluded that the characteristics of real estate policy in March were very obvious. While continuing the policy content in February, the focus was still on supporting real estate enterprises by lowering the threshold for pre-sale of houses and reducing taxes and fees.
Specifically, unlike the February policy, the favorable policy extends to the resumption of work. For example, Chengdu will increase rent subsidies for cultural tourism industry functional zones, key cultural tourism projects and cultural tourism enterprises that return to work in time.
In addition, the policy of delaying the payment of housing provident fund has also been adopted by many cities. For example, Shanghai can apply for an extension if it cannot pay the housing provident fund in full and on time due to the epidemic.
It is not easy for the four cities to withdraw the "bailout" policy and break through the restrictions on purchase restriction and down payment.
In fact, in March, some cities introduced non-mainstream policies. Affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, although the sales offices in various places have been restored one after another, the market is still hard to get rid of "cold and cheerless". Therefore, some places have to adjust the property market policy to boost demand and provide appropriate support for housing demand. Including deed tax subsidies, relaxing restrictions on buying houses, and reducing the down payment of provident fund.
"With all kinds of policies to stimulate economic recovery flying all over the sky, some local governments have also hitchhiked or expanded stimulus policies in some areas, leading to policy rectification." Yuan Jian, co-founder of Cheng Jian, said this.
After Zhumadian, Henan Province lowered the down payment ratio of housing provident fund loans from 30% to 20% in February, some cities still tried to break through on the demand side in March to stimulate the market. However, it ended in an inevitable miscarriage.
In March, the property market policies issued by four cities were withdrawn. Among them, Guangzhou in Guangdong, Jinan in Shandong and Baoji in Shaanxi introduced the "one-day tour" policy, while Haining in Zhejiang was urgently withdrawn less than two hours after its announcement, which was the most representative.
On March 24th, Haining proposed that during the first Shang Yun Housing Expo (March 25th-April 24th), the policy of "non-Haining registered population is restricted to buying houses in Haining" will not be implemented for the time being. After the news was released, the market was in an uproar. "In order to avoid over-interpretation, this policy was finally revoked," explained the relevant authorities in Haining. Since then, the Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau of Haining City has also issued the "Key Points of Housing and Urban-Rural Construction in the City in 2020", reiterating that "housing is not speculation".
Although ostensibly it is a customized promotion measure for "Yunzhai Expo", it actually means relaxing the purchase restriction. Zhang Dawei believes that this policy has attracted attention mainly because it has broken the bottom line, which is equivalent to canceling the purchase restriction policy that encourages real estate speculation.
Policies seen as breaking the bottom line also include reducing down payment. On March 12, Baoji City demanded that "all banks should actively strive to reduce the down payment ratio of the first home loan". This is also the first time that the local government has explicitly reduced the down payment policy statement. For such a policy with strong signal significance, it was removed from the official website Baoji Municipal People's Government in less than 12 hours.
The "business restriction" policy, which has the same regulatory effect as "purchase restriction", has also been challenged by local governments. On March 4th, in the second notice issued by Guangzhou Municipal Government, the content of "Guangzhou commercial service projects are no longer restricted in sales targets and minimum segmentation units" was deleted. This also means canceling the previous "no business" clause.
Zhang Dawei believes that the policies that have been withdrawn at present are basically policies to stimulate the market rather than stabilize it, and the policies that can be implemented are basically policies to save enterprises rather than save the market.
The survival policy is mainly talent and provident fund, and the talent policy in nearly 20 cities is linked to buying a house.
"It is not contradictory to have a house without speculation and support just to buy a house. In order to cope with the impact of the epidemic, some favorable policies have just been introduced and improved, which does not violate the principle of property market regulation. " Zhang Dawei said so.
Because of the "one-day tour" policy, most cities have introduced relatively cautious policies. Judging from the surviving real estate policies, talent policy and provident fund policy are the main ones.
According to the statistics of Zhongyuan Real Estate, in March, nearly 20 cities across the country issued various talent policies, which basically included the terms related to house purchase. In fact, talents become the window of real estate policy regulation. In 20 19, more than 170 cities in China issued different talent policies, an increase of more than 40% over the same period in 20 18. In the first quarter of 2020, more than 50 cities issued talent policies as a whole.
Among them, Jiangmen City, Guangdong Province proposed that non-local households with college education or above can purchase a new set of commercial housing. Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province offers 50-70% discount for qualified talents to purchase houses. Tianjin relaxed the restrictions on the settlement and purchase of the Beijing-to-Tianjin project that settled in Tianjin Binhai Zhongguancun (00093 1, Guba) Science Park and Baodi Beijing-Tianjin Zhongguancun Science City, but attached the conditions of three-year sales.
According to Zhang Dawei's analysis, the talent policy is not so sensitive, and local governments are gradually cautious when introducing policies. Compared with the "one-day tour" policy, there is usually no risk of withdrawing from the talent policy.
It is worth noting that under the guidance of the Urban Management Bureau, policies such as housing subsidies and provident fund loans in third-and fourth-tier cities went green in March.
On March 23, Yulin City issued a policy. For residents who buy new commercial housing, the proportion of deed tax subsidies in March, April and May is 50%, 40% and 30% respectively. For the purchase of new commercial and office buildings, the maximum subsidy shall not exceed10.5 million yuan.
On March 27th, Liuzhou adjusted the upper limit of personal housing provident fund loan to 400,000 yuan, and the minimum down payment ratio for households to purchase ordinary housing for the first time was 20%. 1 household, in order to improve the living conditions, the minimum down payment ratio is adjusted to 30%.
Regularly standardize market policies. Will the local bottom line policy still take the lead?
Although the policy in March was mainly favorable, compared with February, policies to regulate market behavior were also introduced one after another.
On March 4th, Dongguan, Guangdong Province proposed that the adjustment range of the declared price of unsold houses by real estate enterprises should not exceed 5%, and the downward adjustment range is not limited. The move is to prevent the price of new houses from rising at will.
On March 30th, Guiyang issued the "Notice on Further Strengthening the Supervision of Sales Behavior such as Down Payment, Online Signing and Over-marketing of Commercial Housing Purchase". Among them, in terms of down payment for house purchase, it is strictly forbidden for housing enterprises and intermediaries to provide down payment financing in violation of regulations.
In this regard, Yan Yuejin, research director of the think tank center of Yiju Research Institute, believes that with the recent relaxation of housing purchase policies in various places, various marketing chaos began to increase. When the market transaction is slightly active, it is necessary to standardize the current housing transaction market order.
From the current point of view, although the real estate market turnover in March was obviously warmer than that in February, it has not yet returned to the normal market level. In this regard, Zhang Dawei believes that the pressure on the capital chain of real estate enterprises is increasing, and local governments should, under the principle of "housing and not speculating", introduce policies to stabilize the just-needed and improved demand for self-occupation, so as to avoid the possibility that the capital chain of some real estate enterprises will break in April-May.
Yan Yuejin also believes that with the "suspension" of individual local policies, the introduction of local policies will be more conservative, especially in the introduction of housing policies. In fact, the current policy is mainly to relax, and all local policy actions should be supported as long as they do not violate the general principles.
However, some insiders still believe that the "shutdown" policy in March will also affect the future policy direction. However, under the pressure of local finance, especially in third-and fourth-tier cities, there are many policies that will test the bottom line.
Yuan Jian, co-founder of Cheng Jian, believes that from the perspective of policy rectification, obvious signals have been revealed. "The general direction of housing and housing will not change, but it is a high probability event to adjust policies in time to deal with the epidemic. More policies will focus on the supply side. Even if it is liberalized at the sales level, it starts with liberalizing sales conditions and properly resuming sales behavior, rather than directly and quickly adjusting restrictions on buyers. "
Beijing News reporter Yuan Xiuli