Experts expect that the real estate market in 2024 will continue to be in the process of transformation and adjustment. In the context of further differentiation of the property market, the regulation of the property market in 2024 requires more differentiated and refined policies.
Reporter Li Xiaohong.
As 2023 comes to an end, the real estate market in 2024 is in the spotlight.
In 2023, China will increase the supervision and regulation of the real estate market, and the local government has successively introduced a series of adjustment and optimization policies to promote the steady development of the real estate market. In 2024, how to further adjust and optimize policies to help the healthy development of the real estate market?
Policy adjustment and optimization continued to advance.
The Politburo meeting held on July 24 put forward the important thesis that "the relationship between supply and demand in China's real estate market has undergone major changes". Subsequently, ** and local governments have successively introduced policies to adjust and optimize the regulation and control of the property market and promote the smooth operation of the real estate market. Recently, Ni Hong, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Minister of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, said that this year's real estate market is generally high, medium and low, and stable.
Regulatory policies have played a positive role in hedging the decline and have been effective at both the supply and demand ends. Li Yujia, chief researcher of the Housing Policy Research Center of the Guangdong Provincial Urban Planning Institute, told the China Economic Times that on the supply side, state-owned enterprises and central enterprises are actively taking land and starting construction, and construction companies are actively entering the development industry and are in a high position on the sales list. On the demand side, ensuring the delivery of buildings, lowering the threshold for buying a house, and reducing the cost of buying a house have played a role in stabilizing expectations. However, due to the concentrated outbreak of problems accumulated in the early stage, the tight capital chain of real estate enterprises and the weak demand side of the property market, etc., the effect of regulatory policies is limited. The regulatory policies on the supply side are not strong enough, such as the majority of new citizens, young people, and foreign population, which have great demand potential, but have not played a role in hedging against the downward trend of the industry.
Zhao Daxuan, deputy director of the Urban and Real Estate Research Center of the National Institute of Development and Strategy of Chinese Renmin University, told the China Economic Times that 2023 is a year of rapid changes in the supply and demand relationship of China's real estate market, and the psychological expectations of both sides of the market supply and demand have undergone major changes, which directly affects the activity of the market. In 2023, a large number of policies have been introduced at all levels, but there is still no major structural reversal in the market, and the market has a strong wait-and-see mood.
Looking ahead to 2024, can the real estate market further stabilize and recover?
Zhao Daxuan believes that the real estate market in 2024 will continue to be in the process of transformation and adjustment. On the one hand, enterprises that operated through "high turnover and high debt" in the early stage will be gradually eliminated, the historical problems of the real estate market will be gradually resolved, and market confidence will gradually recover. On the other hand, the real estate market will be differentiated, and developers with strong product competitiveness, with good location, good management and good construction of stock housing will perform better in the market.
Differentiated fine policies may become the main direction.
In the context of major changes in the relationship between supply and demand in the real estate market, the construction of a new model of real estate development is accelerating.
In 2024, China's real estate policy should be more active in promoting the major transformation of the real estate market and meeting the market's expectations in terms of land supply, planning and construction, and financial support. Zhao Daxuan said.
Zhao Daxuan suggested that, first of all, from the perspective of land supply, more attention should be paid to city-specific and local policies. For some cities with high pressure on new home sales, the speed of land supply should be slowed down. For some cities where there is a structural mismatch in the supply of new housing, the potential of land supply should be tapped, and high-quality land plots should be supplied in the direction of meeting the people's needs as much as possible. Secondly, from the perspective of planning and construction, the more the real estate market is down, the more we must pay close attention to the unfinished projects and the quality of new housing construction, and reduce the proportion of pre-sales and other measures to enable developers to improve the quality of development and enhance market confidence. Finally, in terms of finance, in addition to meeting the normal financing needs of real estate enterprises, it is also necessary to effectively reduce the cost of capital for home purchases and establish a more flexible real estate mortgage market.
Li Yujia believes that in 2024, the adjustment and optimization of real estate policies should focus on the supply side. First, there should be fundamental measures in the implementation of the "three arrows", the white list, and the "three not less than". Enhance information transparency and mutual trust between banks and enterprises, standardize the financial behavior and information disclosure of real estate enterprises, prevent enterprises from misappropriating pre-sale funds in violation of regulations, and eliminate the intersection of capital flows between projects, so that financial institutions can clearly analyze the actual debt and controllable cash flow of projects. For the real estate development projects supported by new financing, it is necessary to ensure the independence of debts and creditor's rights, ensure that the sales funds are fully used for the delivery of the project and debt repayment, and operate the funds in a closed loop, so as to prevent assets or funds from being frozen and deducted. Second, it is necessary to obtain incremental effects in the areas of allotment affordable housing, public rental housing, and urban village transformation, and connect them with the housing needs of middle-income and middle-income groups such as new citizens, young people, foreign population, households without household registration, newly introduced talents, and wage earners, including incremental construction, especially stock revitalization.
Liu Lu, a professor at the School of Economics of Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, told the China Economic Times that in the context of further differentiation of the property market, the regulation of the property market in 2024 requires more differentiated and refined policies. First of all, in first-tier cities with high housing prices, affordable housing can be further highlighted, and affordable dormitory housing with beds can be provided for low-income people or people with specific occupations. For the replacement type of improved home purchase, it can provide convenience from many aspects such as credit and transactions. Continuously improve and standardize the transaction process of second-hand housing, protect the legitimate rights and interests of the people, and maintain the normal market order of second-hand housing transactions. Secondly, the property market in second-tier cities needs more flexible regulatory policies tailored to local conditions. Thirdly, there is further downward pressure on the property market in third- and fourth-tier cities, and measures such as subsidies and tax incentives can be issued to promote the recovery of the local market. It can also be combined with the Spring Festival holiday to do a good job in supporting services for returning to the hometown to buy a house, and undertake the spillover of the purchasing power of the property market in first- and second-tier cities.