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our reporter zhuang linghui and lu zhikun reported from beijing

recently, a number of market institutions released real estate market reports for the first three quarters of this year. data show that in the first three quarters, the sales area of ​​new homes in key cities across the country fell by more than 30% year-on-year; the price of second-hand homes has fallen for 28 consecutive months, and the transaction volume has remained basically the same year-on-year.

many interviewees told reporters from china business news that since the beginning of the third quarter, the support effect of the “5.17” new deal for the property market has weakened, and combined with the traditional off-season and other factors, the scale of property market transactions has further declined. the recent politburo meeting of the cpc central committee set the tone to promote the real estate market to "stop falling and stabilize". many cities, including first-tier cities such as guangzhou, shenzhen and shanghai, have quickly followed up on property market policies such as purchase restrictions and adjustments. it is expected that the market will usher in a marginalization in the fourth quarter. improve.

transactions weaken

although the transaction volume in the middle of the year has rebounded due to the "5·17" new property market policies, in the first three quarters of this year, the overall transaction volume of the property market is still on a downward trend.

according to data from the china index research institute, in the first three quarters of this year, the overall activity of the new home market was weak. the sales area of ​​newly built commercial residential buildings in the key 100 cities fell by about 32% year-on-year, of which the year-on-year decrease in the third quarter was about 19%; the transaction volume of second-hand houses in the key 30 cities it fell by 2% year-on-year, and the decline was significantly narrower than that of new homes.

however, the transaction volume of second-hand houses was basically flat year-on-year, mainly due to "price-for-volume". data show that in the first eight months of this year, second-hand housing prices in 100 cities fell by 5% cumulatively, falling for 28 consecutive months month-on-month.

inventory data from shanghai yiju real estate research institute in 100 cities across the country also shows that in august this year, the transaction area of ​​newly built commercial residential buildings in 100 cities across the country fell by 27.0% year-on-year, which was larger than the 18.5% decline in july, and the sales cycle was 25.2 months. .

in the second-hand housing market, from january to august this year, the number of transactions in 22 key cities across the country fell by 3%. in the same period last year, the growth rate was positive, and the magnitude was 31%.

data from the national bureau of statistics shows that from january to august this year, the sales area of ​​commercial housing nationwide was 610 million square meters, a year-on-year decrease of 18.0%; the sales volume of commercial housing was 6.0 trillion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 23.6%, a decrease of 0.7% from january to july. percentage points.

in addition, the market stabilization trend has also emerged.

"july to august is the traditional off-season for marketing. affected by this, the absolute sales area and amount of new commercial housing in the third quarter were at the lowest point during the year." cric pointed out that in august this year, the sales area of ​​new commercial housing was 64.53 million square meters. sales amount was 639.3 billion yuan, down 12.6% and 17.2% respectively year-on-year, and the declines were narrower than last month.

policy relay

since the third quarter, the effect of policy support for the property market has gradually weakened. under the recent signal of "stopping the decline and stabilizing", many parties expect that follow-up support policies will be increased and implemented as soon as possible. with confidence boosted, the market is also expected to see marginal improvements.

"under the signal of 'stopping the decline and stabilizing', real estate policies will further open up space in terms of lowering mortgage interest rates and adjusting taxes and fees." yang kewei, deputy general manager of cric research center, believes that under the corresponding requirements of the recent political bureau meeting of the cpc central committee, it is expected that the lpr (loan market quoted interest rate) quotation as soon as october 20 is expected to be reduced by 20-25bp, which will drive the housing loan interest rate center to move further downward; at the same time, various types of housing-related taxes, such as deed tax, value-added tax, personal tax, etc. will be reduced or exempted through various forms. transaction taxes and fees to promote housing consumption.

on september 29, the central bank implemented a number of financial support measures for real estate, including first-tier cities such as guangzhou, shenzhen, and shanghai. many cities are also following up on the implementation of property market policies such as purchase restriction adjustments.

among them, the central bank issued an announcement to officially initiate the reduction of existing mortgage interest rates. according to the announcement, the interest rates for existing first-home mortgages across the country can be reduced to lpr-30bp, and all commercial banks are required to issue operational details no later than october 12. in principle, the interest rates for existing mortgages should be uniformly implemented by october 31, 2024. batch adjustments.

"the types of mortgages adjusted this time cover a wide range, including not only first-home mortgages, but also second-home mortgages and above, and involve all existing mortgage interest rates." chen wenjing, policy research director of the zhongzhi research institute, pointed out that after this adjustment, the existing first-home mortgages across the country mortgage interest rates can be reduced to lpr-30bp, which is currently 3.55%; the interest rates of second- and above-existing mortgages in beijing, shanghai, and shenzhen are expected to be reduced to the current newly issued second-term interest rates, such as second-family existing mortgages within the fifth ring road in beijing the interest rate can be reduced to 3.8%, and outside the fifth ring road, it can be reduced to 3.6%.

in addition, shanghai, shenzhen, and guangzhou have successively issued new policies for the property market, which involve optimizing purchase restriction policies, reducing down payment ratios, and reducing the value-added tax exemption period. among them, in terms of housing purchase restrictions, the social security period requirement for non-local residents outside the outer ring in shanghai has been reduced from 3 years to 1 year, shenzhen has canceled purchase restrictions in suburban areas, and guangzhou has completely canceled purchase restriction policies.

"shanghai, shenzhen, and guangzhou are rapidly following the new property market policies this time, which is also a concrete manifestation of active response to the '9·26' political bureau meeting of the cpc central committee, and the policy intensity is generally in line with expectations." chen wenjing believes that many cities are following up on the new property market policies this time. it is expected that real estate market activity in various regions will increase in october, which will further drive the recovery of activity in the national real estate market. however, more policies are still needed to stabilize the national real estate market.

in addition to further adjustments to existing policies such as housing purchase restrictions, loan restrictions, and sales restrictions, the industry believes that in the future, various regions will pay more attention to promoting the construction of high-quality housing and introduce a series of supporting policies.

"supply-side policies will pay more attention to promoting high-quality residential construction and pilot sales of existing homes." yang kewei believes that in terms of high-quality residential properties, capacity calculation rules will be further optimized to increase the housing acquisition rate, and the regulatory retention of pre-sale funds for high-quality projects will be appropriately reduced. ratio, encourage high quality and low price, no longer implement price guidance for new homes, etc.; in terms of existing home sales pilots, it is possible to increase the development loan quota for existing home sales projects, extend the development loan period, and reduce development loan interest rates, etc.

it is worth noting that against the background of the overall weak new home market, the sales performance of existing homes is significantly better than that of off-plan homes. in the first eight months of this year, off-plan sales of commercial housing were 420 million square meters, a year-on-year decrease of 27.7%; existing housing sales were 180 million square meters, a year-on-year increase of 18.6%. at the same time, in the first eight months, the proportion of existing housing sales area in the total sales area has increased to 30.2%, an increase of 7.7 percentage points compared with the whole year of 2023.

(editor: lu zhikun review: tong haihua proofreader: zhai jun)