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Author: Yihang Studio

With the increasing intensity of real estate market regulation, "small favors" can no longer impress buyers, and "zero down payment for home purchase" has reappeared. Recently, on social platforms, home buyers' experience sharing content such as "zero down payment can buy the first home in life" has aroused heated discussions among netizens. Real estate agencies in Guangzhou, Zhengzhou and other places are posting posts in the tone of home buyers to promote the "zero down payment" plan to attract home buyers to come for consultation.

At first glance, it seems like pie in the sky to be able to buy a property without a down payment. However, "all gifts from fate have already been secretly marked with a price", and in practice, the waters of "buying a house with 0 down payment" are very deep.

You can buy a house with zero down payment. Are you tempted?

In fact, the so-called "0 down payment home purchase" means that the agent helps you advance the money to buy a house, it is not really zero down payment at all.

According to media reports, this is how zero down payment works. Take a property in Huangpu District, Guangzhou as an example. The registered price of the property is 17,000 yuan/square meter, and the transaction price is 12,000 yuan/square meter. According to the housing purchase policy in Guangzhou, the down payment ratio of the buyer needs to be above 15%, which means that the customer can normally borrow 85% of the total house price from the bank. If zero down payment is required, the developer will cooperate with the bank to make a purchase contract according to the registered price, and borrow money from the bank at that price. The extra loaned funds will be paid by the developer to the customer as a down payment.

An agent said, "The total price of a house in the contract is 1.45 million yuan, but the actual selling price is 1.02 million yuan. The developer will directly pay the buyer the extra 210,000 yuan by borrowing 85% from the bank. The buyer can use this money to pay the down payment, so he can buy a house with zero down payment."

It is true that you don’t have to spend money, but the risks behind it are also as expected. Some industry insiders said that zero down payment is an application of leverage, which is the same as the previous zero down payment car purchase. The buyer seems to have not paid any money, but in fact he has not made any concessions and has to bear more interest.

First, housing prices are overestimated, and loans are obtained through illegal means such as signing hidden contracts and overestimating housing prices. Such operations will not only increase the loan interest and monthly mortgage repayment burden of home buyers, but home buyers will also not receive the legal protection they deserve.

These illegal operations will not be written in the formal purchase contract, and the law does not recognize them. Once the intermediary reneges on its original promise and the bank cannot complete the loan approval procedures, it will cause economic losses to the homebuyer, and it will be difficult for the homebuyer to pursue legal responsibility and claim compensation. At that time, both the homebuyer and the house will be left empty-handed.

In fact, this behavior has violated the relevant national financial credit policies. The "Notice on Regulating Housing Financing and Strengthening Anti-Money Laundering Work" and other documents clearly require that real estate developers and real estate intermediaries are strictly prohibited from illegally providing housing down payment financing and other behaviors, and Internet financial institutions and microfinance companies are strictly prohibited from illegally providing "down payment loans" and other housing financing products or services.

At the same time, regulatory authorities in many places have issued emergency reminders. On August 5, the Housing Security and Real Estate Administration Bureau of Zhengzhou City, Henan Province, issued a risk warning about "0 down payment" home purchases, reminding home buyers to stay calm when faced with the temptation of "0 down payment", down payment financing, down payment installments and disguised down payment advances, and to buy homes according to their actual situation.

Are the vested interests starting to "have conflicts"?

However, the emergence of this situation also illustrates another phenomenon: the competition between real estate developers, banks and local governments, which were once in the same boat, is becoming increasingly fierce.

At present, the reshuffle of the real estate industry is accelerating. In order to reduce inventory, local governments have introduced a series of policies to boost market confidence, but from the actual effect, the policies have not been able to reverse the market downturn as quickly as expected. In terms of land auctions, private real estate companies have become more cautious in bidding for land, and the national land auction data has dropped sharply in the first half of the year, which may lead to tight local revenue.

According to data released by CRIC, the top 100 real estate developers achieved sales of 279.07 billion yuan in July, down 36.4% from the previous month and 19.7% from the previous year. In this context, some real estate agencies have come up with the idea of ​​"buying a house with zero down payment" to attract buyers. However, the essence of zero down payment is that buyers use their own assets as collateral to cash out, and even if they cannot get the house, they still have to repay the loan. Banks only recognize the contract and who signed it.

After such an operation, the real estate company achieved the goal of collecting funds and could withdraw safely, but the conflict between the homebuyers and the banks could not be resolved. In fact, this behavior is to transfer part of the risk to the homebuyers and the other part to the banks. The vested interests have begun to fight, and ordinary people have to keep an eye on their wallets. At this time, if you still want to covet the pie in the sky, be careful not to get yourself into trouble.