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media reports said that sales of commercial housing increased significantly during national day, and real estate developers were busy raising prices. the actual sales of new homes during the national day period in the five cities of beijing, shanghai, guangzhou, hanzhou and rong as reported by the above-mentioned media are completely different from the reports. amid the largest real estate stimulus measures in history, why did the real estate market still see little change during the national day?

1. media reports said that sales of commercial housing increased significantly during national day, and real estate developers were busy raising prices.

during the national day holiday, the most high-profile thing i saw on the internet from the official media was the sound of real estate suddenly turning from cold to hot, from low to prosperous, from price reduction to price increase.

the guangzhou daily reported on october 4 that under the multiple stimulation of guangzhou’s comprehensive cancellation of housing purchase restrictions and the addition of various favorable policies and home purchase discounts, three days before the national day holiday, home buyers’ confidence in the property market increased significantly, with the number of people looking at the listings and subscription transactions increasing significantly. volume has increased significantly. in the first three days of october, the number of people visiting houses in liwan district increased by 532% compared with the daily average in september. the average daily sales of commercial housing in liwan district was 86.7 units.

tencent news prism reported on october 4 that from october 1 to 2, the author of "prism" visited a number of real estate properties and intermediary stores in beijing. the agents all said that after the introduction of the new deal, the number of inquiries and visits to the stores had increased. both volume and transaction volume have increased to a certain extent, and the property market has picked up significantly. on the night of october 1st, a number of real estate developers in beijing announced their results in a high-profile manner. among them, poly beijing "succeeded on the first day, with strong sales of 187 million yuan"; china merchants xi visited more than 100 groups of customers in a single day and subscribed for 125 million yuan...

jiupai news reported on october 5 that, stimulated by multiple positive real estate policies, wuhan’s property market became hot during the national day. it’s halfway through the national day holiday. according to data from wuhan home buying hub, from october 1 to october 4, a total of 585 new homes were sold, an increase of 32% compared to last year. the recovery of the market has caused a temporary price adjustment for a certain property, with the price rising by 500 yuan per square meter.

blue whale news reported on october 1 that the "shanghai seven" "king bomb" launched on the evening of the 29th made the transaction volume in one day on the first day of the national day holiday equal to that of the past week. the industry said that new houses in the outer ring were greatly affected by the new deal, with one project selling more than a dozen units a day.

on october 5, "daily economic news" reported that reporters visited several real estate sales departments in chengdu and learned that under the influence of favorable policies, the number of visits and transactions for many projects has increased significantly since the national day holiday. some projects you may even have to queue up to view houses in popular projects in core areas. according to beike housing search information, as of october 4, during the national day holiday, 1,360 new houses had been sold through beike channel alone in greater chengdu. the report also said that some customers transferred deposits in the middle of the night.

2. the actual sales of new homes in the five cities of beijing, shanghai, guangzhou, hanzhou and rong during the national day reported by the above-mentioned media are completely different from the reports.

it should be that, in the week before the national day, unprecedented economic stimulus measures including real estate were implemented. compared with the previous toothpaste-squeezing measures to deal with the economic downturn, they were very generous. in addition, there were different departmental policies, as well as short messages at different levels between departments and the politburo. time is superimposed, just like people suddenly go from winter to summer and are full of dreamy feeling.

but the actual market reaction requires people to use real money to express their stance. is the real situation generally consistent with media reports?

sanlang counted the number of local new home online signings disclosed by relatively credible real estate bloggers in five major cities in the southeast, northwest, and chengdu: beijing, shanghai, guangzhou, wuhan, and chengdu, and cross-verified the data with other local real estate bloggers. , to ensure the authenticity of the data. statistics found that four days before this year’s national day, the number of online new home signings in these five cities compared with the same period last year not only did not increase, but fell at roughly the same rate as in september.

in the first four days of october, the number of new houses (residentials) signed online in the five cities of beijing, shanghai, guangzhou, han and rong was 1,074 units, a decrease of 33.2% from the 1,608 units in the first four days of october 2023.

among them, 398 units were signed online on october 1, a year-on-year decrease of 18.8%; 241 units were signed online on the 2nd, a year-on-year decrease of 14.2%; 223 units were signed online on the 3rd, a year-on-year decrease of 41.9%; 212 units were signed online on the 4th, a year-on-year decrease of 53.2%. .

according to the sales performance rankings of chinese real estate companies from january to september 2024 released by the china index research institute, the total sales of the top 100 real estate companies from january to september was 2.96994 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 38.8%. among them, in september, the sales of the top 100 real estate companies fell by 38.81% year-on-year.

four days before the national day, the year-on-year decline in the number of housing online signings in the five cities was 5.6 percentage points narrower than the year-on-year decline in sales of the top 100 real estate companies in september. this may be the effect of the real estate stimulus measures.

looking at different cities, beijing’s online registration for new homes has declined the most.

in the first four days of october, a total of 124 new housing units were signed online in beijing, a year-on-year decrease of 69.2%. among them, 32, 40, 27 and 25 sets were signed online respectively from the 1st to the 4th. in the same period last year, they were 179, 43, 86 and 95 respectively.

a beijing real estate blogger said that october in the golden autumn should be the harvest season, but beijing’s real estate market seems particularly quiet. real estate agency stores that were once bustling with people are now deserted, and agents’ cell phones no longer ring frequently. the photo walls that were once full of housing information now look a little empty. the market seems to have entered a "cooling period", with both buyers and sellers waiting for new signals.

there are fewer transactions for second-hand houses in beijing than for new houses. from the 1st to the 4th, there were only 55 second-hand houses in beijing signed online.

at present, the inventory of new houses in beijing is as high as 87,132 units, and the number of second-hand houses listed is 15,600 units.

the property markets in shanghai and guangzhou obviously picked up during the national day holiday, but judging from the transaction volume, it is far from reaching the level where prices can rise.

on the 4th day before the national day, among the 4 cities in beijing, shanghai, guangzhou, hanzhou and rongcheng, the number of online new home registrations decreased in 3 cities and increased in 2 cities. these two cities are shanghai and guangzhou.

in the past four days, shanghai has accumulated 394 new houses signed online, a year-on-year increase of 39.2%. it is the city with the best real estate recovery among the five cities. among them, 158 sets were signed online on the 1st day, 95 sets were signed on the 2nd day, 65 sets were signed on the 3rd day, and 76 sets were signed on the 4th day. in the same period last year, the numbers in shanghai were 160, 31, 62 and 30 respectively.

in the first four days of october, 276 new housing units were signed online in guangzhou, an increase of 7.8% over the same period last year. among them, the online signing volumes from the 1st to the 4th were 110, 56, 59, and 51 sets respectively. in the same period last year, they were 19 sets, 83 sets, 81 sets, and 73 sets respectively.

from this point of view, the growth of online visas in guangzhou is mainly affected by the 1st day. in the three days from 2 to 4, there was a decrease of more than a quarter year-on-year. it is estimated that by the end of the national day, the number of new housing online signings in guangzhou will drop by about 7% year-on-year.

the new home market in wuhan and chengdu shrank as usual in the four days before national day.

from october 1st to 4th, 195 new housing units were sold in wuhan, a year-on-year decrease of 56%.

this data is different from the 585 units reported by jiupai news, because among the 453 units signed online on the 1st, only 63 units were sold online on the 1st, and the rest were the number of houses still built in september, which was transferred on the 1st. the number of online visas issued on the 1st of each month in wuhan includes those still under construction in the previous month. on october 2nd, 37 sets were signed online, on october 3rd, 39 sets were signed, and on october 4th, 56 sets were signed. from the 1st to the 4th last year, there were 111 sets, 82 sets, 128 sets, and 122 sets respectively.

in the first 4 days of october, 8,449 square meters of new housing units were signed online in chengdu, which is about 85 units based on 100 square meters per unit. there were approximately 223 units of 22,322 square meters compared with the same period last year, a decrease of 61.9%.

it can be seen that in cities such as chengdu and wuhan, which have already relaxed purchase restrictions, new real estate stimulus measures will not have much effect. it can be inferred from the sales characteristics of these five cities during the national day that the new purchasing power of commercial housing in these two places is mainly due to shanghai's significant reduction in the number of social security years for home purchase qualifications for non-local residents, and guangzhou's direct cancellation of purchase restrictions for those who work in the two cities and have the ability to purchase a home. people. however, except for beijing, shanghai and guangzhou, other places have already lifted purchase restrictions, because it can be reasonably speculated that during the national day, the sales situation of commercial housing in other cities across the country is generally similar to that of wuhan and chengdu.

in the sales of commercial housing, real estate developers will always push their psychological warfare to the limit. the lively scenes in the sales offices reported by the media may not necessarily reflect the real home buyers. every holiday, real estate companies will hire people to enhance the atmosphere on site. there are even routines of signing fake contracts in front of a few real home buyers who cannot pay or sign online. this may be the main reason for the contrast between media reports and real data.

3. amid the largest real estate stimulus measures in history, why did the real estate market still see little change during the national day?

on september 24, the central bank lowered reserve requirements, interest rates and down payments, lowered the deposit reserve ratio by 0.5 percentage points, guided commercial banks to lower existing mortgage interest rates by about 0.5 percentage points on average, and unified the minimum down payment ratio for new and old mortgages to 15%.

on september 26, the politburo meeting clearly proposed for the first time to promote the real estate market to stop falling and stabilize, releasing a strong signal to stabilize the real estate market.

various localities have also implemented the national measures to stimulate real estate in a very timely manner.

on september 30, six departments including the beijing municipal housing and urban-rural development commission issued a notice to adjust the number of years for non-local residents who purchase commercial housing within the fifth ring road to pay social insurance or personal income tax to three consecutive years before the date of purchase. and above.

on september 29, 2024, shanghai launched a new property market policy ("shanghai seven measures"). among them, the social security payment period for non-registered households purchasing housing outside the outer ring road is reduced from 3 years to 1 year, and the value-added tax exemption period is adjusted from 5 years to 2 years.

on september 29, guangzhou city issued a notice on adjusting measures for the stable and healthy development of the real estate market. the notice clarified that various purchase restriction policies for households to purchase housing in this city will be cancelled, making it the first city among first-tier cities to completely cancel purchase restrictions.

on september 30, wuhan city issued the "notice on continuing to promote the stable and healthy development of the city's real estate market", adding ten preferential policies including optimizing the identification standards for individual housing loans and providing phased preferential support for home purchases.

chengdu high-tech zone and other places have issued policies to support home purchase and schooling, implement subsidies to benefit the people, promote trade-in for old ones, and issue room ticket incentives.

why were the predictions made by some real estate experts before the national day that "the property market has been cold for three years and it only took three days for the property market to be hot" and "house prices have fallen for three years and it only took three days to rise back up" were not fulfilled?

this is because the main factor that currently determines the real estate market is neither loan interest rates nor purchase restrictions. mainly because:

first, the population with effective demand for real estate continues to decrease year by year.

this is reflected in the continued decrease in the number of people aged 20-60 who need to buy houses, the sharp decrease in the number of demolished households in need of new houses, and the sharp decrease in the number of farmers settling in cities. as the total population and new population continue to decrease, urban shantytowns that can be demolished rapidly decrease, and urbanization enters the late stage, the potential demand for these three types of housing has entered a downward channel and is unlikely to grow.

second, the home ownership rate is close to the ceiling.

there is an objective rule for any product that can be used for a long time. when the ownership rate is low, the sales conditions and prices can significantly affect its sales volume. as the ownership rate gets higher and closer to the ceiling, its sales volume will decrease as the ownership rate increases. stimulus measures have had less and less impact on increasing sales.

for example, in western countries, after the car ownership rate is extremely high, it is very difficult to grow sales. in our country, car sales have declined in recent years, which is actually closely related to the increase in ownership rates.

at present, our per capita housing area exceeds the average level of developed countries, and each household has more than one apartment. this means our homeownership rates are close to the ceiling. commercial housing sales are facing a downward trend.

third, debt is close to the risk warning line.

according to the imf's calculation of household debt and per capita disposable income, our household debt-to-income ratio has exceeded 148%, exceeding not only all developing countries, but also all developed countries. based on an average repayment period of 20 years and a loan interest rate of 4%, annual principal and interest payments will account for 13.3% of income, which is about twice the annual growth rate of income. generally speaking, if the proportion of debt service expenditures in income exceeds the annual growth rate of income, it means that household debt will limit consumption and there will be debt risks.

the current real estate stimulus measures cannot solve these three major problems.

[author: xu sanlang]