Wen Leju Finance Zeng Shujia
At the end of 2023, looking back at the land auction market this year, the transaction area fell by 21% year-on-year, once again refreshing a new low in the past decade, and the transaction value also fell by 18%.
However, the expected overall coldness has emerged as a local liveliness, with hunting and land retreat, high premiums and reserve price transactions in parallel, and impressive plots of land acquisition have been staged.
The most talked-about thing is the "metaphysics" of land acquisition, which is highly respected. Outside the Lama Palace, Tanzhe Temple is crowded, and the real estate people burn incense devoutly;At the lottery site, the queue channel drawn out often could not accommodate many representatives of real estate companies who had registered, and the queue turned a corner along the corner.
At some local auction sites, the investment and development personnel of real estate enterprises invariably put on red robes, and some brought oranges, bananas, and even "Cantonese suckling pigs" on the table.
All kinds of moves, just to get the luck in the "lottery pool". In the case of narrowing profit margins, high-quality land is scarce, wolves have more meat and less meat, and the competition has been fierce.
The real estate companies thought of various methods, and at first all the companies under the same group came together to improve the probability of winning the lottery. But later, Beijing introduced new rules for local auctions, blocking this way.
It's just that the wind of "vests" has prevailed again. Unfamiliar company names appeared at the site of centralized land supply, and people later found out that they were agents of land for real estate developers.
However, only some core cities have a high degree of heat in the core plots, and it is not uncommon for land auctions to be cold in another parallel time and space. In October, many cities implemented the policy of "canceling the land price limit", and since then, many "land kings" have reappeared, sending a different signal.
However, as of the end of December, the land-to-sales ratio of the top 100 real estate companies was 019, although it is slightly higher than before, it is still at a low level. In the case that the pace of sales has not yet started, the willingness of real estate companies to acquire land has not recovered significantly.
The scale of land transactions fell by two percent
This year's residential land supply plan has shrunk compared with previous years, and the completion rate of the land supply plan is still only 40% on average.
According to CRIC statistics, only a few cities such as Shanghai, Changchun, Chongqing, Qingdao, Huai'an, Lianyungang, and Shenzhen have completed the list of pre-supplied land as scheduled.
The rest of the cities such as Nanjing, Wuhan, Xiamen, Fuzhou and other cities have only completed about 60 percent, Xi'an has completed less than 40 percent, and even Hangzhou, which is more popular in the first half of the year, has nearly 30 percent of the pre-announced plots that are overdue. Most of the overdue plots are more remote plots.
**Behind the failure to meet expectations is the lack of certainty of "intending buyers" for a large number of plots. In other words, the willingness of real estate companies to acquire land has not been improved as a whole.
In 2023, the total investment of the top 100 new land storage real estate enterprises will be the lowest in the past seven years. From January to December, the total value of new goods, the total price and the total construction area of the top 100 were 2,997.8 billion yuan, 1,435.8 billion yuan and 120.73 million square meters, respectively, a year-on-year decrease of % and 12%.
Throughout the year, the ratio of land acquisition to sales of real estate enterprises showed a trend of "opening low and going high". In the first quarter, the land-to-sales ratio was the lowest, at only 007, is the lowest investment willingness of the whole year, and then the willingness to take land continued to increase slowly, but the degree of recovery is limited, as of the end of December, the top 100 real estate companies to land sales ratio is 019。
In the fourth quarter, the land price limit was lifted, and the land was returned to market pricing, giving developers more room for imagination and further boosting the land market.
Hefei, Dongguan, Chengdu and other cities have auctioned off the city's floor price "new land king", among which Chengdu, even in a land auction, auctioned three regional land kings at one time, with the highest premium rate as high as 43%. Nanjing, Hangzhou, Changsha, etc., have also auctioned their respective plate land kings.
Although there is a phenomenon of "warping" in land transactions, as of December 20, the construction area of the land market in 300 cities across the country is 12200 million square meters, a decrease of 21% from the same period in 2022 and a decrease of 5 percentage points from the previous year.
The land transaction area of cities of all energy levels was lower than the level of the same period last year. Even in first-tier cities, the total transaction size was 26.1 million square meters, down 32% from the same period last year. In addition to Beijing's year-on-year **18%, Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Guangzhou all showed a certain degree of decline.
In the second- and third-tier cities, the transaction volume also showed a year-on-year downward trend, with a year-on-year decrease of % respectively.
Real estate enterprises and cities are differentiated
In August, a banner of "Warmly welcome the triumphant return of the elites of East China Investment and Development" appeared at the door of Greentown Shanghai Company. At that time, in the Shanghai land auction, this real estate company from Hangzhou won three yuan.
Zhang Yadong, chairman of the board of directors of Greentown China, couldn't help but sigh in the circle of friends: "I invested 18 billion yuan in two days, and Shanghai even won three yuan, with a probability of nearly one in 5,000, which is really amazing." ”
While many real estate companies are struggling to cope with liquidity problems, Greentown's focus is still on "investment and expansion still need to work hard, and there is a risk of scale reduction if the scale of land acquisition is insufficient." ”
This has become the epitome of some real estate companies' efforts to shoot locally.
During this year, "three plots of land in Beijing were contested by more than 80 real estate companies in one day", "88 real estate companies competed for land", "71 real estate companies participated in the lottery" and other local auction phenomena, layered collage the overall "cross-section" of the land auction.
In core cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the popularity of land auctions is heating up, largely because various central state-owned enterprises are vying to replenish the core land reserves of first- and second-tier cities to reserve grain and grass for the future. The land reserves of these core cities have a high capital threshold, while the central state-owned enterprises have relatively strong funds and have more opportunities to start.
Leju Finance and Economics statistics found that in 2023, the real estate companies in the four cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen will rank first in terms of the amount of equity land acquisition, with a scale of between 12 billion and 20 billion, all of which are central state-owned enterprises. They are familiar names such as China Resources Land and China Overseas Development, which are on the list.
In the land auction market in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, the top 10 real estate companies in terms of equity land acquisition amount are all from the background of central state-owned enterprises, while Shenzhen ranks among the top 10 real estate enterprises in terms of equity land acquisition amount, and only Longfor Group is a private real estate enterprise.
Unlike first-tier cities, Hangzhou has become a place of competition for local private real estate companies. During the year, Binjiang acquired 14 land in Hangzhou, with an equity land acquisition amount of 1872.4 billion yuan, the performance is more conspicuous. Jianhang, Weixing, Kunhe, etc., are lined up, and they are all among the top ten in terms of land acquisition scale in a single city.
In Chengdu, where the property market is strong, there are local state-owned enterprises and urban investment companies such as Xingcheng Habitat, Chengdu Rail Transit, and Chengdu High-tech Investment, which have flashed in the local auction market.
The market environment has not yet recovered, and most real estate companies have chosen the route of sales and production, focusing on core cities and core areas.
What is particularly critical is that many high-quality land plots have been launched in core cities, with high potential for decentralization and a lot of profits. In the era of low profits in real estate, once they smell the profit margins of the plots, the real estate companies that still have liquidity will rush to make up for their positions.
But the local liveliness is difficult to resist the overall coldness. As a result, the trend of differentiation continues, with real estate companies differentiating and cities also differentiating.
There is a set of data that is enough to illustrate this phenomenon. In 2023, the top 50 real estate companies will take 38% of the country's land, and half of the top 100 real estate companies in sales will not take land. Among the cities, only six cities, including Shanghai, Hangzhou, Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou and Nanjing, have a land transaction value of more than 100 billion yuan.
Take the appearance of all living beings
The policy of land acquisition is being adjusted in due course.
As early as last year, the Ministry of Finance had clearly mentioned that it was strictly forbidden to reserve land through borrowing, and it was forbidden to falsely increase the income from land transfer through the purchase of land by state-owned enterprises, and it was not allowed to falsely increase fiscal revenue under false pretenses to make up for the shortfall in fiscal revenue.
Later, the centralized land supply shifted to "a small number of times", the new regulation that "the same group member enterprises shall not register for the same parcel of land at the same time" was introduced, and the price limit ...... land auction was abolishedThe new order of the local auction market has gradually been revealed.
In the general environment, it is a general consensus that real estate companies have "less cities and fine land plots" in the land acquisition strategy.
More and more real estate companies have begun to enter the market to get land, and dozens of real estate companies are participating in the lottery at every turn.
To this end, real estate companies have come up with a lot of solutions. Among them, the most common is to believe in metaphysics, praying to be favored by the goddess of luck, and in actual combat, they often find a "vest" to take the land.
Not long ago, the land that Dongfang Yuhong grabbed in Fengtai, Beijing, was finally transferred. The partner also surfaced - China Shipping. Oriental Yuhong issued an announcement showing that Hongfeng Real Estate, the main body of the construction of the Fengtai plot, intends to transfer 95% of the equity of Hongfeng Real Estate held by Hongxi Real Estate to Suzhou Zhuhui and transfer **4750,000 yuan.
In other words, the vast majority of the equity of the Fengtai plot was transferred to Suzhou Zhuhui, and Dongfang Yuhong itself only held 5% of the shares. Dongfang Yuhong has confirmed the title of "vest" of China Shipping Development.
This is reminiscent of the end of July, a residential land in the Shiling area of Longquanyi, Chengdu, was won by Sichuan Tongxiejia Real Estate Development under the same decoration. More than 20 days later, Sichuan Tongxiejia changed its investors and held 100% of the shares. The same decoration has become the "vest" of a local real estate developer in Chengdu.
The Majia land acquisition incident is not uncommon in the current land auction market. Recently, there have been many unfamiliar faces in the local auction market, such as Nantong Aaron, Jianhang Real Estate, Zhejiang Zhonghao, etc., who have brought their own funds to enter the market and finally cooperated with leading developers to develop projects, so they are regarded as "new vests".
Most vest companies go for financial investment in the hope of obtaining another income**;And some real estate companies, not so much for the land dividends, but more for the depth of cooperation with real estate companies.
However, not every time you get the land, you can get your wish.
In the previous June, the bidding result of the bidding result was invalid due to the bidder's failure to pass the post-qualification review link, and the land acquisition entity not only failed to get the 65.1 million yuan deposit refunded, but was also included in the "blacklist" of dishonesty.
The reason for this is that the bidder violates the provisions of the transfer plan: the bidder should have the qualification of a real estate development enterprise. In the case of joint bidding, all parties to the consortium shall meet the requirements for development qualifications.
In addition, in the past year, cases of land being withdrawn after land acquisition have been staged one after another.