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our reporters chen ting and zhao yi report from shenzhen

"i wish you a happy mid-autumn festival in advance! we will not be closed during the mid-autumn festival. we can provide free transportation to show you new homes across shenzhen, and you can enjoy group purchase discounts and subsidies when you buy a home." on the eve of the mid-autumn festival, shenzhen real estate agent zhu yang (pseudonym) is sending holiday greetings to his clients one by one, and at the same time hopes to take this opportunity to attract more clients to visit during the holiday and rush for a wave of transactions.

at present, the property market has entered the traditional peak sales season of "golden september and silver october". china business news reporters noticed that various market players have made many moves. a relevant person in charge of a national real estate company told reporters that the company's guangzhou project took advantage of the opportunity to launch a limited-time low-priced housing supply, and cooperated with the new building to "rush to harvest". a relevant person in charge of a leading real estate company revealed that the company launched a "big promotion house purchase coupon" during the "golden september and silver october" period, which is valid until december 31, 2024. in addition, real estate agencies themselves have also launched marketing activities, shouting out the eye-catching slogan "new houses 1 yuan to kill 1 square meter".

the mid-autumn festival holiday that just passed was a warm-up match. according to statistics from the china index academy, during the mid-autumn festival holiday (september 15-17), the average daily sales area of ​​new homes in 25 representative cities was 129,000 square meters. among them, the average daily transaction areas in guangzhou and shenzhen were 7,000 square meters and 4,000 square meters respectively. the increase in the number of visits to new homes in the core area of ​​guangzhou has not yet been reflected in the transaction level, and the overall performance of the new home market in shenzhen is relatively flat. from the current situation, this year's "golden september" of the real estate market has started flatly. the industry expects that policies will be implemented at the key node at the end of september to further boost the real estate market.

speed ​​up inventory reduction

"mid-autumn festival special offer, only three days of sale", "benefits for signing orders during the mid-autumn festival", "golden september housing season, good gifts"... this year's "golden september" in the real estate market first set off a wave of heat during the mid-autumn festival holiday. "there were a lot of customers coming to see the house on the first day of the mid-autumn festival. from 9 am to 3 pm, i have shown 5 groups of customers." wen wei (pseudonym), a real estate agent in guangzhou, told reporters.

according to statistics from china index academy, during this year's mid-autumn festival, more than 40 real estate projects in guangzhou launched marketing activities such as "fixed price" and special price listings, and two projects were launched at the same time. from the overall situation, the market heat and visit volume have increased compared with the previous period, especially the newly launched projects, which attracted many buyers due to their superior geographical location and high cost performance, but have not yet been reflected in the transaction end. from september 15 to 17, the total transaction area of ​​new houses in guangzhou was about 14,000 square meters, and the average daily transaction volume decreased by 65% ​​year-on-year.

in shenzhen, in addition to developers' regular promotional activities, the government also introduced subsidies for residential renovation and reconstruction in the early stage, but residents are still cautious about buying houses and are mostly waiting and watching. according to data provided by shenzhen centaline research center, the transaction volume of new houses in shenzhen during the mid-autumn festival holiday was basically the same as the previous weekend (september 7-8). leyoujia research center said that during the three-day mid-autumn festival holiday, the average daily transaction volume and viewing volume of second-hand houses in shenzhen leyoujia stores did not increase significantly compared with previous weekends.

china index academy pointed out that the shenzhen property market is under great pressure to destock in the short term, and customers have more choices, further exacerbating the wait-and-see sentiment. the transaction performance of the second-hand housing market is slightly better than that of the new housing market. "old, dilapidated and small" and cost-effective housing sources maintain a certain degree of heat driven by the price-for-volume strategy.

in fact, entering september, the overall market activity was less than expected. according to cric statistics, from september 1 to 12, 2024, the scale of new home transactions in 30 key cities decreased slightly month-on-month, and was significantly lower than the same period last year. specifically, the total transaction area of ​​30 key cities was about 2.95 million square meters, a decrease of 6% from august 1 to 12 this year, and a decrease of 18% from september 1 to 12, 2023. among them, the transaction decline in first-tier cities was the most obvious, and the transaction in beijing and shenzhen was weak; the transaction in second-tier cities remained stable overall, and the transaction performance in ningbo, changsha and other places improved; the transaction in third- and fourth-tier cities increased by 19% month-on-month and decreased by 1% year-on-year on the premise of a low base. foshan, huizhou and other cities performed relatively well, showing an upward trend both month-on-month and year-on-year.

it is worth noting that in the past, the concentrated launch of new projects by developers and the release of accumulated demand in the early stage gave rise to the “golden september and silver october” in the real estate market, but this year, real estate developers’ enthusiasm for launching new projects has been insufficient.

according to cric statistics, in september, the new commercial housing supply area in 28 key cities is expected to be 7.03 million square meters, a decrease of 4% month-on-month and 59% year-on-year, far less than the average monthly supply level in the second quarter of this year, and basically the same as the average monthly supply of 6.99 million square meters in the first quarter. among them, the supply in first-tier cities increased by 10% month-on-month, the supply in second-tier cities decreased by 5% month-on-month, and the supply in third- and fourth-tier cities shrank significantly. in terms of cities, guangzhou concentrated on increasing supply, with a month-on-month increase of 33%, but the pace of real estate developers' sales in shenzhen is expected to be stable and declining, and the overall supply is expected to decrease by 22% month-on-month, or less than 3,000 units. from the perspective of supply structure, the supply ratios of rigid demand, improvement, and high-end products in key cities are 45%, 42%, and 13% respectively, showing a supply structure of "mainly rigid demand and improvement, supplemented by high-end".

behind the developers' low enthusiasm for launching new properties, the current real estate market is still mainly focused on destocking. a person in charge of a real estate company told reporters that the promotional properties launched by his company during the "golden september and silver october" period include clean-up products, and the company has set up a "fixed price" preferential measure for these properties. at the same time, many real estate projects use "buy this year and live this year" and "ready-to-move-in sales" as selling points to attract customers.

when the market is down, the ability to cash in inventory is directly related to the survival and development of the company. according to cric statistics, in the first half of 2024, the proportion of completed inventory of 74% of key real estate companies increased compared with the beginning of this year. alleviating inventory pressure is the current main business goal of real estate companies.

looking forward to further policy optimization

the "golden september" has passed the halfway point, and the new housing market is still under pressure due to the shrinking supply and strong wait-and-see sentiment. some young potential homebuyers told reporters that in the current environment, "looking at houses while waiting for policies" has become their normal practice.

according to incomplete statistics, a total of about 450 real estate adjustment policies were issued in the first eight months of this year, with the frequency in july reaching 68 times. the current frequency of policy issuance in a single month this year is higher than last year's level.

on may 17, the people's bank of china and the financial regulatory bureau jointly issued a series of favorable policies for the real estate market, which were called "epic", including canceling the interest rate floor for commercial personal housing loans for the first and second homes, reducing the down payment ratio for residents to 15%, lowering the interest rate for personal housing provident fund loans, and establishing 300 billion yuan of affordable housing re-loans, which attracted widespread attention and were actively implemented by various regions. however, apart from this, the strength and impact of other demand-side policies in the near future are limited.

cri believes that there is still room for real estate policy to be strengthened in september. on the one hand, key policy nodes including the end of september are approaching. on the other hand, the current new and second-hand housing market activity has declined, transaction momentum is insufficient, and market confidence needs to be boosted. "taking into account the performance sprint in the second half of september and the concentrated filing of projects, the scale of new and second-hand housing transactions in september is expected to exceed that of august, but the growth rate of transactions may be limited."

data released by the national bureau of statistics showed that from january to august, the sales area of ​​newly built commercial housing was 606.02 million square meters, a year-on-year decrease of 18%, of which the residential sales area decreased by 20.4% year-on-year; the sales of newly built commercial housing was 597.23 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 23.6%, of which the residential sales decreased by 25% year-on-year; residential investment was 526.27 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 10.5%; the residential construction area was 496.052 million square meters, a year-on-year decrease of 12.6%.

according to cric statistics, from january to august, the cumulative transaction area of ​​30 key cities was about 81.65 million square meters, a year-on-year decrease of 34%. among them, the transaction area in august was about 9.23 million square meters, a month-on-month decrease of 9% and a year-on-year decrease of 20%. the transaction volume of the four first-tier cities of beijing, shanghai, guangzhou and shenzhen all declined to varying degrees.

according to statistics from guangzhou centaline research and development department, in august, 4,906 new homes were signed online in guangzhou, a month-on-month decrease of 18%. august is traditionally a low season for sales, and many customers are traveling during the summer vacation, and some developers have cancelled their promotional offers, resulting in low customer interest in real estate projects and relatively flat sales performance. data provided by the shenzhen real estate agency association shows that in august, 2,537 new residential homes were sold in shenzhen, a month-on-month decrease of 3% and a year-on-year increase of 15.4%. the new home market has continued to decline slightly, but the transaction volume has increased to a certain extent compared with the same period last year.

it is worth noting that the overall performance of second-hand housing transactions is better than that of first-hand housing, which is one of the more obvious trends in the property market this year. taking the mid-autumn festival holiday as an example, the monitoring data of the linping residential big data research institute showed that the average daily transaction volume of second-hand houses in 7 key cities was 382 units, an increase of 104.9% and 236.8% respectively compared with the average daily transaction volume during the mid-autumn festival and national day holidays in 2023 (the mid-autumn festival and national day holidays were consecutive holidays) and the mid-autumn festival holiday in 2022. the transaction end of the second-hand housing market showed a certain resilience, and the transaction performance was better than the mid-autumn festival holidays in the past two years.

xu yuejin, deputy director of research at china index academy, analyzed that the end of september each year is a period of intensive introduction of real estate policies. it is expected that relaxing restrictive policies in core cities will still be an important direction for optimizing demand-side performance. local governments still have further room for adjustment in reducing mortgage interest rates, transaction taxes and fees, and housing subsidies are also expected to be further increased. in terms of destocking, currently affected by factors such as acquisition prices, capital costs, and housing mismatch, the pace of local state-owned enterprises' acquisition and storage is slow. in the future, if the scope of use of acquisitions of existing housing, the scope of acquisition targets, and financial support can continue to be optimized, market confidence is expected to be restored. "from the trend point of view, the end of september is expected to usher in the optimization of real estate policies. with policy support, market transactions are expected to pick up in the fourth quarter."