Affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic, according to practice, it should be February when the property market was sluggish. There was a policy blowout phenomenon, and a real estate market "war epidemic" quietly staged. According to incomplete statistics from the Centaline Real Estate Research Center, in February, more than 40 cities across the country issued real estate support policies, most of which focused on postponing the payment of land transfer fees, reducing pre-sale conditions, and extending the start and completion time. According to industry insiders, under the tone of "housing to live without speculation," the current policy is mainly embodied in saving companies but not saving the market. However, due to the limited return of sales funds and the arrival of debt servicing peaks, real estate companies are still under great financial pressure. There are also voices in the industry calling for appropriate support for rigid demand and improvement of housing demand on the basis of "no speculation in housing."
Over 40 cities adjust policies to ease the financial pressure of enterprises
As enterprises resume work, real estate-related support policies in various regions have also emerged.
On February 19th, while extending the payment of the land transfer fee, Suzhou proposed for the newly transferred land that if the land auction price exceeds the market guide price, it is not uniformly required that the project structure is capped and sold.
According to Suzhou's 2019 land transaction regulations, if the auction price is too high and touches the red line of the relevant price, then it is necessary to apply for a pre-sale permit based on structural ceiling or completion acceptance. According to Yan Yuejin, research director of the Think Tank Center of the E-House Research Institute, it is "selling in the form of existing houses", which has a greater test on the capital chain of real estate companies.
Although Suzhou emphasized that this policy adjustment is “not the removal of capped pre-sales and existing home sales restrictions,” it is undoubtedly reducing land transaction constraints, pre-sale nodes in advance, reducing financial pressure, and accelerating the supply of houses to the market.
In fact, Suzhou is only a typical city that has recently released many supporting policies for the property market. Zhang Dawei, chief analyst of Centaline Real Estate, concluded that more than 40 cities have recently released real estate policies, mostly focusing on the deferred payment of provident funds and land payments, and some policies are to speed up pre-sales. Individual third- and fourth-tier cities have issued deed tax reduction and exemption policies for house purchase subsidies.
It is reported that Wuxi is the only city that introduced real estate support policies earlier and more comprehensively. On February 12, Wuxi issued the "Policy Opinions on Responding to the Pneumonia Epidemic Caused by the Novel Coronavirus to Ensure Orderly Urban and Rural Construction." In terms of terms, it has become a model for subsequent urban support policies.
Among them, Wuxi requires banks not to blindly draw, cut off loans, or press down on loans to ease corporate liquidity funding difficulties. Companies that have difficulties in repayment at maturity will be extended, and loans that are due before June 30 and have a loan term of less than one year will be renewed without repayment.
In addition, it also includes the pre-sale of the building after 25% of the investment; the start and completion time will be extended accordingly; the deferred tax declaration in accordance with the law, and even apply for deductions; enterprises can apply for delayed land delivery and delayed payment of transfer fees; enterprises can apply for advance payment Focus on supervision of funds, etc. From the perspective of the core content of Wuxi's policy, the purpose is to conditionally ease the financial pressure of enterprises.
Since then, at least more than 10 cities including Jinan, Xi'an, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Tianjin, Wuxi, Nanchang, Nanjing and other cities have introduced new land policies in response to the epidemic. It is clear that the land payment can be applied for extension or payment in installments. In the eyes of industry insiders, this is also the best way to deal with the resumption of work in the current land market, which has given rise to the momentum of land recovery in many cities. To a certain extent, it alleviates the financial pressure of real estate companies.
Home buyers have insufficient confidence in buying homes, and the pressure on real estate companies to repay debts still exists.
It is worth noting that on February 14, Hengyang issued the "Seventeen Measures", which broke the scope of Wuxi’s previous policy and stimulated The direction of the demand side extends.
In Yan Yuejin's view, the "Seventeen Measures" has a strong support orientation for the property market. Recently, many cities have introduced policies to support housing enterprises, which can be seen in the "Seventeen Measures". Among them, in addition to reducing the cost of land use by real estate companies, it also proposes housing purchase subsidies to enjoy the tax reduction and exemption of "housing price x 1%". While stimulating the demand for housing provident fund purchases, it also supports housing purchasers to arrange schools nearby.
Judging from the current situation, the “seventeen measures” is the most beneficial practice in this wave of real estate policy adjustments. Obviously, the third- and fourth-tier cities are eagerly waiting for the market to recover after missing the bonus of returning home to buy a home.
In fact, in addition to the above-mentioned support policies for the real estate market, real estate companies still benefit from the benefits of the popular inclusive policy. Including the previous executive meeting of the State Council decided to reduce or exempt corporate social insurance premiums and implement the policy of deferring payment of housing provident funds by enterprises. On February 20, the 1-year LPR was reduced to 4.05%, and the 5-year or more LPR is reduced to 4.75%. Although the interest rate cut is not to stimulate real estate, its effect on stabilizing the real estate market cannot be underestimated.
However, in the view of the Zhongzhi Research Institute, whether it is on the supply side or the demand side, the cities that have introduced support policies are still mainly concentrated in a few provinces.
Zhang Dawei also believes that the existing real estate policy must be out of date when the sales office is closed and construction sites are suspended. From the current point of view, the real estate policy basically only has a certain impact on the reduction of expenditures for real estate companies, and the biggest problem for real estate companies at present is financial pressure, especially the problem of due debt. Once sales cannot recover quickly, real estate companies will still face widespread funding pressure in March.
“Because of the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, on the demand side, home buyers have insufficient confidence in buying homes. On the supply side, due to the limited return of sales funds and the arrival of debt repayment peaks, the pressure on real estate companies’ funds has increased significantly.” The research results of the academy show this.
A previous survey by the All-Union Real Estate Chamber of Commerce showed that 46 real estate companies (mainly small and medium-sized enterprises) have nearly 530 billion yuan in debt due in the first half of 2020. One of the typical real estate company's monetary funds may only be enough for the company to maintain operation for three months. According to statistics from the Wind database, as of June 30, 2020, the maturity of real estate credit bonds was 98.2 billion yuan, and the maturity of overseas bonds was about 122.605 billion yuan.
"Housing is not speculation" is frequently mentioned, and the industry calls for policies to moderately benefit the demand for purchases.
It should not be ignored that on February 19, the central bank stated in the China Monetary Policy Implementation Report in the fourth quarter of 2019 that the insistence on housing is used In accordance with the basic principle of “policy by city”, the establishment of a long-term real estate financial management mechanism should be accelerated, and real estate should not be used as a short-term means of stimulating the economy.
It is not the first time that "housing and housing are not speculation" has been mentioned. Recently, the Ministry of Finance, the National Bureau of Statistics, the Central Bank and other departments have frequently mentioned the tone of "housing and housing not speculation".
However, Zhang Dawei believes that real estate is indeed impossible to allow speculation, but measures to stabilize real estate policies will appear frequently. In the short term, the current real estate policy has little effect on the alleviation of the real estate capital chain, and it is difficult to save the market. More cities should introduce more measures to stabilize the economy and stabilize real estate. Therefore, he suggested that on the basis of housing not speculating, we should let go of rigid demand and improve housing demand.
Wang Ruochen, a researcher at the Shanghai E-House Real Estate Research Institute, also believes that the absence of comprehensive easing of credit inflows from real estate companies, a significant drop in residential mortgage interest rates, and widespread liberalization of purchase and sales restrictions cannot be called true relaxation.
Previously, Zhao Zhengting, secretary-general of the Quanlian Real Estate Chamber of Commerce, said that from the current perspective, support for real estate companies is still very cautious, but there has been a signal release. Regarding the direction of related policies, he expects to be reflected in the delayed payment of payable funds, flexible and efficient use of stock funds; financial institutions will support the continued use of stock credit; and sales and financial policies will be more positively biased towards consumers.
"Follow-up on the country’s major cities’ policy publication frequency will accelerate." Yan Yuejin predicts that, in addition to the policies supporting the development and sales of real estate enterprises, content such as housing purchase deed tax subsidies may be frequently adopted because it does not involve sensitive purchase restrictions such as relaxation Problems, and can be a tool to subsidize home buyers.
What kind of market policy will be able to stabilize expectations in the future? People from the Zhongzhi Research Institute said that it is necessary to more flexibly implement "policies based on cities", increase industry support, focus on supply-side policy support, ease corporate funding pressure, and enhance corporate development and investment confidence. At the same time, demand-side policy encouragement is used as a supplement to enhance home buyers' confidence in home ownership and increase demand to release enthusiasm.
Some cities have intensively introduced support policies for the real estate industry
Source: Zhongzhi Research Institute comprehensively compiled
Beijing News reporter Yuan Xiuli
editor Yang Juanjuan proofread Li Ming
