In 2023, the pace of recovery of the land market will be slow, and most real estate companies, especially large and medium-sized private real estate enterprises, will still be relatively conservative in investment, and the scale and intensity of land acquisition will be at a low level. In contrast, central enterprises, state-owned enterprises and some regional private real estate enterprises still maintain a certain scale of investment in land acquisition.
Industry insiders believe that compared with the past few years in the past few years in the city of various cities to conquer the city, at present, the "less cities, fine plots" strategy is a general consensus.
So, which real estate companies will continue to acquire land in 2023?How will the land auction rules affect the trend of the land market in 2024?
China Overseas Real Estate and Poly Development ranked among the top two in terms of new value.
At the end of 2023, the pace of land promotion will accelerate, driving the growth rate of total land acquisition by enterprises to turn positive. According to the "2023 National Top 100 Real Estate Enterprises Land Acquisition Ranking" released by the China Index Research Institute, in 2023, the total amount of land acquired by the top 100 enterprises will be about 132 trillion yuan, a slight increase of 1 year-on-year in the scale of land acquisition7%, and the total amount of land acquired by the top 100 enterprises in the 300 cities across the country accounted for 428%。
From the perspective of new value, China Overseas Real Estate, Poly Development, and China Resources Land occupy the top three on the list. In 2023, China Overseas Real Estate will occupy the first place on the list with a cumulative new value of 258.5 billion yuanPoly Development and China Resources Land followed, with a cumulative new value of 233.6 billion yuan and 220.6 billion yuan respectively. The total value of new goods added by the top 10 enterprises in 2023 is about 160 trillion yuan, accounting for 41 of the top 100 enterprises0%。
In addition, according to CRIC's data, the top 100 real estate companies are more clearly differentiated, in the past year, nearly half of the enterprise investment stagnant, but there are still 25 real estate companies with a land amount of more than 10 billion yuan, mainly central enterprises and state-owned enterprises. Moreover, the amount of land acquired by some real estate companies has increased significantly compared with 2022, such as China Shipping, Greentown, China Railway Construction, etc., which increased by more than 30% year-on-year.
In fact, in 2023, central enterprises, state-owned enterprises and local state-owned assets will still be the main force in land acquisition, and large central enterprises and state-owned enterprises will have a higher investment intensity. In particular, the participation of central enterprises and state-owned enterprises in the land market in key cities is relatively high, among them, national leading enterprises such as China Overseas Real Estate and Poly Development are still widely deployed in many key cities, and more than half of the top 10 real estate enterprises in key cities are central enterprises and state-owned enterprises, which is directly related to the relatively good financial situation of stable state-owned enterprises and central enterprises.
On the whole, in 2023, among the top 100 enterprises, the number and amount of land acquisition by central enterprises, state-owned enterprises and local state-owned assets will account for about 80%, and the trend of land resources gathering to them is more significant due to the advantages of financing ability, sales ability and credit qualification. Among them, Poly Development, China Overseas Real Estate, China Resources Land, C&D, China Merchants Shekou, China Railway Construction, Yuexiu Real Estate, Huafa Co., Ltd. and other central and state-owned enterprises are among the top 10 in terms of land acquisition.
It is worth noting that China Construction Company has maintained a high investment scale for two consecutive years, and actively expanded its self-invested real estate business under the pressure of construction business. In addition to China Overseas Real Estate and China Overseas Hongyang, subsidiaries such as China Construction Dongfu, China Construction Zhidi, and China Construction Jiuhe have also entered the top 100 in terms of land acquisition amount for two consecutive years. Large central enterprises and state-owned enterprises should seize the appropriate replenishment of resources at the bottom of the land market, which will help seize the opportunity after the market recovers.
The cap on land prices has been lifted, and market fragmentation has intensified.
Although central enterprises and state-owned enterprises are the main force of investment, large and medium-sized stable private enterprises also maintain a certain scale of investment, especially some regional small and medium-sized private enterprises are also increasing their expansion efforts. In 2023, among the top 100 enterprises, the number of private enterprises will increase to 15, but the proportion of land acquisition will only be 107%, indicating that the current private enterprises still maintain a more cautious attitude, the average scale of land acquisition is relatively small, and most of them are small and medium-sized real estate enterprises.
Liu Shui, director of enterprise research at the China Index Research Institute, said that from the perspective of specific enterprises, large and medium-sized and stable private enterprises such as Longhu and Binjiang still maintain a certain scale of investment to match capital turnover and sales. As the industry accelerates the pace of clearing, some local small and medium-sized real estate enterprises seize the window period of land acquisition to seize land resources to increase market share, for example, Weixing Group has maintained a high investment scale and entered the top 20 in land acquisition amount for two consecutive yearsDahua Group has entered the top 50 in terms of land acquisition amount for two consecutive years. In 2023, Fangyuan, Chimelong and others will rely on their parent companies to increase investment in the real estate industryJianhang, Kunhe and other local private enterprises that are good at cooperation focus on Hangzhou and actively expand the market.
In terms of land auction policy, starting from September 2023, land price restrictions will be lifted in many places. According to the monitoring of the China Index Research Institute, since October 2023, 22 cities that have implemented centralized land supply have successively issued announcements on newly listed residential land, and 19 cities have optimized the upper limit of land price, of which 18 cities have launched no maximum price limit for residential land (the upper limit of land price has been cancelled for some plots in Tianjin), and the upper limit of Ningbo's land premium rate has been increased from 15% to 30%;Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen still continue the previous land price restriction rules.
In addition, in 2023, the sales price limit policy for commercial housing built on the land plot will also continue to be optimized. For example, Nanjing, Chengdu, Fuzhou and other 3 cities have clearly canceled the sales limit, some areas of Hangzhou have canceled the price limit, Hefei, Jinan, Qingdao, Tianjin and other 14 cities have not clearly set the sales limit in the documents, while Beijing, Shanghai, Zhengzhou still has sales restrictions.
With the abolition of the upper limit of land prices, the auction enthusiasm of high-quality land plots in various places has also shown an upward momentum, which is reflected in the intensification of market differentiation, and the "recovery" of non-core land plots is limited. In this regard, Liu Shui believes that specifically, after the cancellation of the upper limit of land prices, the core plots of hot cities have heated up, driving the overall premium rate, but the investment layout of real estate enterprises is still cautious, and the number of land is limited. Moreover, most of the high-premium land is obtained by central enterprises and state-owned enterprises, and small and medium-sized real estate enterprises are under greater pressure to acquire land.
Industry: In the future, the local auction market will continue to diverge.
Looking forward to 2024, Liu Shui said that in cities where the upper limit of land prices has been abolished, it is expected that some core plots will be auctioned at high premiums under the focus of real estate investment, but the differentiation of land auctions will continue, and there will still be transactions at reserve prices or even unsold in non-core areas. Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen are expected to optimize the rules for land auctions according to market changes, such as canceling or raising the upper limit of premium rates in some areas. Due to the relatively good financial strength of central enterprises and state-owned enterprises, the proportion of subsequent land acquisition may continue to increase;For small and medium-sized real estate enterprises, the pressure on land acquisition in core cities has increased. It is worth noting that with the more fierce competition for some land plots, if enterprises acquire land at a high premium, it will lead to the compression of project profits.
In 2023, the cautious attitude and focus strategy of real estate companies in investment will run through the whole year, which is reflected in the sharp decline in the threshold of the top 100 investors and the decline in the total investment of the top 100 sales. In such an investment situation, the advantages of central enterprises and state-owned enterprises are significant, especially in the bidding of key cities and core plots, central enterprises and state-owned enterprises continue to "dominate the list", effectively improving high-quality land reserves and optimizing the structure of land reserves.
CRIC analysts expect that the main theme of cautious land acquisition will continue into 2024, and the willingness to acquire land will remain weak until the two major factors affecting real estate investment - capital and expectations do not improve significantly. Therefore, the future investment will also continue two major differentiation trends: from the city level, the land market will also run at a low fever and continue to differentiate, in the selection of cities and plots, the first and second tier cities and urban core plots, complete supporting plots will be more favored by real estate enterprises. In addition, combined with the loosening of land auctions in core cities, land auctions will return to marketization, and real estate companies will return to "fight strength" from the past "fighting luck" to "fighting strength", which puts forward higher requirements for the financial strength and operational strength of real estate enterprises, and the advantages of leading real estate enterprises in obtaining high-quality land plots will continue to expand, and the concentration of the industry may continue to rise.
Beijing News reporter Yuan Xiuli.
Edited by Wu Xin and proofread by Liu Baoqing.