In more than 20 cities across the country, buying a house will give you a household registration. How long will it take to settle down with zero threshold?
2024-07-22
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At present, cities with a permanent population of more than 5 million, such as Xi'an, Zhengzhou, Nanjing, Jinan, Hefei, Shenyang, Qingdao, Changsha, and Suzhou, have successively introduced policies to settle down by buying a house, and cities with a permanent population of less than 3 million have basically achieved "zero threshold" for settlement. In addition, provincial capitals such as Qingdao and Shenyang have directly proposed that settlement can be made by renting a house
Text｜"Caijing" reporter Zhang Mingli and intern Liu YuqingRecently, various cities have gradually relaxed the conditions for settling in. According to statistics from Caijing, among the megacities with a permanent population of more than 10 million, in addition to the four core first-tier cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen and Tianjin, Chongqing, Chengdu, Dongguan, Wuhan and Hangzhou have all introduced policies that allow people to apply for settlement by purchasing a house. Megacities with a population of more than 5 million (Xi'an, Zhengzhou, Nanjing, Jinan, Hefei, Shenyang, Qingdao, Changsha and Suzhou) have also successively introduced policies that allow people to settle in by purchasing a house, and cities with a permanent population of less than 3 million have basically achieved "zero threshold" for settlement. In addition, provincial capitals such as Qingdao and Shenyang have directly proposed that people can settle in by renting a house.The policy of settling in by purchasing a house is not new. As early as 2006, 2008 and 2015, popular settlement cities such as Hangzhou had relaxed the settlement policy requirements for purchasing a house in a limited area three times. However, around 2016, in response to the "Plan for Promoting 100 Million Non-Registered Population to Settle in Cities" issued by the General Office of the State Council, which stated that "large and medium-sized cities shall not set settlement restrictions by purchasing houses, investing and paying taxes, etc.", cities such as Chengdu began to replace the original settlement policy of purchasing a house with a dual-track household registration migration policy system of conditional settlement and point-based settlement.Many experts interviewed by Caijing said that this policy of settling in through purchasing a house has a certain positive effect on stabilizing the property market, and more cities may follow suit. Li Jia, deputy director of the Institute of Aging Society of Pangu Think Tank, told Caijing that the frequent introduction of settlement policies is related to the low housing prices in some cities. In the context of sluggish housing prices, some cities want to attract migrant workers, especially those from rural areas and small towns, through policies of settling in through purchasing a house, and expand the rigid demand for housing from marriage and childbirth to education, medical care and other aspects, so as to push up housing prices.Some residents told Caixin that since real estate is tied to functions such as settlement, children's schooling, and social services, those who buy houses and settle down there often expect to benefit from the future development of the local area.Lu Ming, a professor at the Antai College of Economics and Management at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, told Caixin that major cities have successively introduced the policy of giving away household registration for buying a house, which is expected to promote population mobility to places with fast economic growth and more job opportunities. This policy is not only conducive to increasing personal employment opportunities and income, but also improves the efficiency of human resource allocation at the macro level, reduces the negative effects of population decline, and promotes sustainable urban development.New first-tier cities are stepping up efforts to buy houses and settle down, while core cities are still on the sidelinesMany parties hoped that purchasing a home and settling there would boost the real estate market, but the effect was less than expected.Taking the "Four Little Dragons of House Prices" of Xiamen, Nanjing, Suzhou and Hefei as examples, these cities have completely lifted housing purchase restrictions for more than half a year. Recently, Hefei, Nanjing and Suzhou have once again introduced new policies for buying houses and settling down, seeking further recovery in the property market.In September 2023, the Office of the Joint Conference on Real Estate Market Regulation in Hefei issued the "Notice on Further Optimizing Real Estate Regulation Policies", announcing that purchase and sales restrictions will be fully lifted. In terms of adjusting the purchase restriction policy, it stated that ordinary buyers who purchase housing (including second-hand housing) in the urban area of the city will no longer be subject to review of their home purchase qualifications.However, after the promulgation of the new policy, the recovery of commercial housing in Hefei's main urban area is still less than expected. According to statistics from the Anhui First Housing Research Institute, in the first 10 months of 2023, the transaction amount of commercial housing in Hefei's urban area was 83.634 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 1.09%, the transaction area was 3.7621 million square meters, a year-on-year decrease of 8.67%, and the number of transactions was 29,650, a simultaneous decrease of 12.8%. In the first 11 months, the transaction amount, transaction area and transaction number fell by 5.1%, 12.6% and 17.0% year-on-year, respectively, showing an accelerated downward trend. In the first quarter of this year, these three data further fell by 50.3%, 50.7% and 49.7% month-on-month, and fell by more than 60% year-on-year.On May 16, Hefei issued a new policy, announcing that those who legally obtain the ownership of local commercial residential properties, their spouses, children, and parents can apply to the public security bureau where the property is located to transfer their household registration. Previously, there were still certain restrictions on settling in Hefei, namely, "when the area of the purchased house is less than 60 square meters, the buyer can only transfer the household registration of himself, his spouse, and one minor child, and parents and other children cannot be settled."Nanjing and Suzhou, as hot cities in the Yangtze River Delta, experienced a rise and then fall in the property market in the first half of 2024. In this regard, Chen Wenjing, director of market research at China Index Academy, analyzed that since the backlog of housing demand in the early second quarter was basically released, the market showed a cooling trend. In April, the transaction area of commercial housing in key cities in the region fell by 27.9% month-on-month, and the market continued to decline from May to June. Taking Nanjing as an example, the city's transaction volume in March reached a peak of 991,500 square meters in the first half of the year. Since mid-to-late March, the market has gradually declined. Thereafter, in May, Nanjing once again introduced property market regulation policies for the main urban area and some streets in Jiangbei New District.On May 11, Nanjing issued the "Notice on Matters Related to Settlement of Legal and Stable Residences" to facilitate residents with legal housing to transfer their household registration. According to regulations, people with legal real estate in urban areas of Nanjing can apply to transfer their household registration, and their spouses, unmarried children and retired parents can also move together. Previously, Nanjing officially implemented the point-based settlement plan on February 1, 2017, and retained the transition period until August 1, 2018, and officially abolished the policy of settling in by buying a house. It was not until October last year that Nanjing relaxed the settlement conditions for those who hold residence permits in the six districts of Nanjing, have social insurance for more than 6 months (inclusive), college graduates under 35 years old (inclusive) who pay social insurance, and those who have social insurance payment approval in the three provinces and one city in the Yangtze River Delta (Jiangsu, Anhui, Zhejiang, and Shanghai), and in March this year, increased the proportion of residence and social insurance bonus points in the point-based settlement indicators.On June 2, the Leading Group for the Pilot Work of the Long-term Real Estate Mechanism in Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province, issued the "Notice on Several Policy Measures to Further Promote the Stable and Healthy Development of the Real Estate Market in Our City", which proposed 16 measures, and non-Suzhou residents who purchased or owned legally owned housing and actually lived in the city can apply for settlement. It is understood that the city's new home market and second-hand market showed a trend of recovery that month, but in terms of the performance of second-hand housing transactions, although the transaction volume of second-hand houses in Suzhou reached 5,122 units in June, a slight increase of 3.22% from 4,962 units in May, in the first half of this year, Suzhou's second-hand housing transactions totaled 29,263 units, compared with 37,406 units in 2023, a year-on-year decline of 21.77%.However, Caijing found that while cities generally relax the household registration policy for house purchase, core first-tier cities are still in a wait-and-see state. Among the super first-tier cities, only Guangzhou and Shanghai have promoted the relaxation of household registration restrictions for house purchase. Compared with other cities where household registration can be obtained by purchasing a house, cities such as Beijing and Shanghai have not yet completely relaxed the household registration restrictions. Zhang Dawei, chief analyst of Centaline Property, said that as of now, there are still four first-tier cities, Tianjin and Hainan that have not fully implemented the policy of giving household registration for house purchase."Super first-tier cities have the conditions to relax settlement policies, but their willingness is not strong. Core cities such as Beijing and Shanghai are more inclined to expand outward, for example, promoting the development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and Yangtze River Delta urban circles." Li Jia said.Li Jia told Caijing that the technical conditions for zero-threshold settlement are mature. However, the household registration is tied to too many other factors, such as house purchase, employment, education, etc., involving all aspects, and one move affects the whole body. At the same time, there are differences in social security and medical insurance in various places, which further exacerbates the complexity of settlement.On May 28, the General Office of the Guangzhou Municipal People's Government issued the "Notice on Further Promoting the Stable and Healthy Development of the Real Estate Market in Our City", which stated that non-local resident families who purchase houses in Yuexiu, Haizhu, Liwan, Tianhe, Baiyun (excluding Jianggao Town, Taihe Town, Renhe Town, Zhongluotan Town), Nansha and other districts can enjoy the housing purchase treatment of registered resident families if they can provide proof of continuous payment of personal income tax or social insurance in the city for the six months before the date of purchase. Previously, they had to pay for two years.In Shanghai, single people who are not Shanghai residents only need to pay social security or personal income tax for three years to buy a house, but they are still not allowed to buy new houses within the outer ring road. Resident families can buy new and second-hand houses throughout the city after paying for three years. In addition, families with many children, whether they are local residents or not, can buy another house on the basis of the current limited purchase policy, and the first house identification standard in personal housing loans has been optimized.Lu Ming told Caijing that the policy will mainly benefit the following groups: first, migrants without local household registration; second, young people, whose housing loan and down payment thresholds have been lowered; third, people with replacement needs, such as buyers of improved housing. The definition of ordinary housing has been relaxed, and the requirements for purchasingThe requirements for buying a second home have been lowered. The policy will release more demand for home purchases and stimulate the vitality of the real estate market.Should settling down be linked to buying a house?For a long time, many cities in China have tied home purchases to household registration. Based on past experience, home purchases and household registration have brought a certain amount of new home purchase demand to the local area.Chen Wenjing believes that allowing people to buy houses and settle down and supporting talents to buy houses will combine housing policies with population and talent policies, which will help promote the influx of population and talents, and to a certain extent, will also promote the release of housing demand. In the short term, the relaxation of settlement restrictions in various places may have become an important trend; in the medium and long term, the continuous influx of population and talents will provide more housing demand for the real estate market, which is also beneficial to the development of the real estate market.However, Lu Ming said that settlement should be based on actual employment and social security conditions, and should not be linked to home purchase. As long as actual employment and social security meet the standards, settlement should be allowed. If home purchase is linked to settlement, and settlement is linked to public services, this is actually giving public services to high-income groups who can afford to buy houses, which will in turn aggravate the inequality of public services. Therefore, the settlement policy should be based on actual employment and social security, and avoid bundling home purchase with settlement, so as to promote a fairer distribution of public services."For China's potential migrant population, the ability to buy a house is an important factor in deciding whether to stay in a city." Lu Ming said that young people, especially those facing the issue of marriage and childbirth, prefer to buy a house in one city. For example, if first-tier cities restrict home purchases, they may choose to settle down, buy a house and have children in second-tier cities. In the future, quasi-first-tier and second-tier cities will usher in a continuous growth in population together with first-tier cities.It is worth noting that the relaxation of settlement policies has played a certain role in attracting population. As the first city in Zhejiang Province to pilot the system of converting residence permits to household registration, Ningbo has relaxed settlement conditions five times since 2018, bringing about significant population growth. In 2023, it took the lead in piloting the policy that those who have lived in Ningbo for three consecutive years and hold a "Zhejiang Province Residence Permit" can transfer their household registration to Ningbo, further lowering the threshold for household registration. According to the seventh census data, the number of influxes from outside the province in Ningbo accounted for 33.4% of the total permanent population."The relationship between buying a house and settling down is not balanced." Li Jia told Caijing that by buying a house, one can obtain the qualification for settling down, and settling down is passively tied to buying a house. However, it is difficult to decouple buying a house and settling down, because the existing settling down policy not only involves household registration, but also bundles other related policies, and a new mechanism needs to be introduced to replace the existing model.The settlement policy has limited effect on boosting real estate and attracting talentAlthough the intensive introduction of settlement policies is intended to save the housing market, many experts interviewed by Caixin believe that relying on settlement policies to stimulate the real estate market has limited effect.Li Jia told Caixin that relying on purchasing houses to boost population and real estate can only be effective in the short term. The healthy development of real estate still requires long-term planning, and we must respond in advance to challenges such as an aging population and avoid over-reliance on land finance.Lu Ming told Caijing that the government usually adopts three measures to attract population inflow, namely the household registration system, public rental housing and support for children's education. These measures may be effective when the level of economic development is low, especially for newly graduated college students. With the improvement of economic development level, cities hope to attract talents with high education level and strong innovation ability in the current talent competition. These people pay more and more attention to the comprehensive quality of life in the city. Cities with high quality of life can attract talents to settle down and work here, especially large cities with good service quality and diversity, which have comparative advantages in advanced manufacturing or productive service industries and can usually provide more suitable employment opportunities."China's housing problem must first strictly distinguish between cities with population inflow and outflow." Lu Ming said that for cities that can maintain positive population growth, relaxing housing purchase policies can release housing demand brought about by population mobility. However, for areas with negative population growth, the policy has little impact on the real estate market and may even lead to further outflow of population, making it more difficult for the local real estate market to digest inventory.In some cities with significant negative population growth and large housing stocks, not only housing but also industrial parks and infrastructure are facing idleness problems. Lu Ming suggested that construction should be reduced and adjusted, otherwise after 20 years of rapid urbanization, some infrastructure and buildings may need maintenance due to aging. If the maintenance cost is too high and there is no sustained demand, it is better to carry out necessary demolition and construction reduction now to avoid a situation where a large amount of money is invested in the future without actual demand.For example, some places have built eight-lane highways, but the traffic volume is very small. Instead of maintaining all eight lanes, it is better to change to four lanes to meet demand and reduce the subsequent maintenance investment. Reducing road investment in the short term may bring long-term financial savings. Otherwise, insufficient maintenance funds and reduced quality may cause huge hidden dangers.As for some cities with great potential for sustained population growth, he also believes that the most important supporting measures today are to plan public facilities around housing and residential areas, especially schools and transportation infrastructure, such as the continued construction of rail transit and the adaptive transformation of underground pipelines, to form a relatively independent living circle with complete service supporting facilities, meet basic public and commercial service needs, and promote the comprehensive development of the city.
