As 2017 is about to pass, the housing market regulation policy in 2018 has become a topic of public concern. Wang Menghui, minister of housing and urban-rural development, said at a national conference on housing and urban-rural construction on Monday that differentiated regulation policies will be adopted next year to meet the demand for the first home, support improvement in demand and curb speculation. At the same time, the destocking task further in-depth, into the county destocking of a new stage.
No relaxation of regulation: to maintain the continuity of policy
So far in 2017, 110 cities have issued more than 250 regulatory policies, according to Centaline Property Research Center.
The country's property market has cooled and remained stable this year through measures such as restrictions on purchase, lending, growth, sales and business. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that since May, housing prices in Shanghai and Beijing have seen "zero growth" on a month-on-month basis, while housing prices in Shenzhen have dropped on a month-on-month basis. In November, new home prices in 11 hot cities dropped back to a year ago, and the transaction volume in hot cities dropped significantly.
Implementing the latest arrangements of the Central Economic Work Conference. Talking about next year's property market regulation, Wang Menghui stressed, adhere to the regulation target will not waver, the strength will not relax, improve the long-term mechanism to promote the steady and healthy development of the real estate market, maintain the continuity and stability of the real estate market regulation policies, pay attention to the real estate market classification regulation, promote the steady and healthy development of the real estate market.
"The target of regulating the balanced development of the property market will not change." Lou Jianbo, director of the Real Estate Law Research Center at Peking University, told Chinanews.com.cn that the continuity and stability of regulation policies can only be achieved by implementing differentiated regulation based on the city, and the specific measures will be adjusted appropriately with the trend of the market.
The National Conference on Urban and Rural Housing Development proposed to step up efforts to standardize and rectify the real estate market, strengthen market monitoring and analysis, improve the ability and level of precision regulation, and further strengthen the main responsibility of local governments.
Differentiated regulation and control policies: support to improve demand to curb speculation
Stressing that "we will not waver in our regulatory targets or relax our efforts", Wang said that next year we will implement differentiated regulatory policies for different types of demand, meet the first set of rigid demand, support improvement in demand and curb speculation.
Yan Yuejin, research director of the think tank center of E-house Research Institute, predicted that the orientation of meeting the rigid needs of the first home will remain unchanged, while the policy on supporting the improvement needs may be relaxed slightly, and the possibility of fine-tuning the policy on the identification of the first and second homes, and the division of ordinary housing and non-ordinary housing may not be ruled out.
Strict measures to limit purchases and loans became standard measures in many cities to tighten the property market in 2017. According to Centaline Real Estate, more than 50 cities have joined the purchase and loan restrictions this year, and some cities have even undergone multiple rounds of upgrades.
In Beijing, for example, the down payment for the first house is no less than 35%, and the first non-ordinary owner-occupied house is no less than 40%. For second suites, the down payment of ordinary self-housing is no less than 60%, and that of non-ordinary self-housing is no less than 80%. The maximum term of the loan is 25 years. At the same time, the main commercial loan rate is 1.1 times the benchmark interest rate for the first home and 1.2 times for the second home. The purchase restriction policy is the strictest in the country.
Xie Yifeng, president of China Urban Real Estate Research Institute, believes that high inventories and oversupply in second, third and fourth-tier cities may be fine-tuned. "For example, the provisions on social security and tax duration for the first set of non-local household registration should be abolished, and non-local residents should be allowed to buy a second house for improvement. Lower down payments for first and second homes; Lower housing credit rates; We will increase tax relief for rigid and improved housing demand."
Vigorously develop long-term lease: accelerate the promotion of legislation to protect the interests of all parties
In view of the central economic work conference proposed "to develop the housing rental market, especially long-term rental." National work conference on urban and rural housing construction is put forward, in the net inflow of large and medium-sized cities to speed up the cultivation and development of housing rental market, to facilitate the construction of the lease state-owned enterprises, support the development of the professional institutions, housing lease enterprises, speed up the construction of government-led housing lease management services platform, accelerate the housing lease legislation, protecting the legal rights and interests of stakeholders of lease.
In fact, in the second half of 2017, the housing rental system reform has become a major drama. The first 12 cities launched a pilot program for housing rental, and more than 50 cities nationwide introduced policies to support housing rental. Beijing, Shanghai and other cities have increased the supply of rental housing such as self-owned housing enterprises and collective rental housing, and a number of above-ground government-run housing rental service platforms.
"The protection of the interests of lease stakeholders is not only the same right of lease and purchase, but also the protection of the interests of both parties." Ni Pengfei, director of the Urban and Competitiveness Research Center at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told reporters that to develop the long-term rental market, mechanisms should be adopted to encourage market players to engage in long-term leasing, such as tax and land measures to ensure the interests of enterprises developing self-owned housing.
"At the same time, the system should be on the lease period, such as provisions, it is recommended that 3 years for a lease period, unless the tenant put forward the termination of the lease, the lessor can not end the lease in advance." Ni Pengfei added that the current domestic laws and regulations on the protection of lessee's interests are not clear enough, leading to the lessor can freely increase the rent, cancel the contract, restrict the behavior of the lessee, the need for restraint.
The destocking work sinks: Shouti county property market destocking
At the same time, destocking is still one of the important work of the real estate market regulation in 2018. Wang Menghui pointed out that the inventory is still large part of the third - and fourth-tier cities and counties to continue to do a good job of destocking.
"The concept of county de-stocking is an important part of it." Yan Yuejun divided the destocking of the property market into three stages: Before 2015, the destocking was basically in the suburbs of the first and second tier key cities; From 2016 to 2017, prefecture-level cities (third-tier cities) destocked. In 2018, ushered in the county destocking stage.
"The destocking in third - and fourth-tier cities is progressing steadily and has achieved remarkable results," Mao Shengyong, spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics, said at a press conference on Dec. 14. In the first 11 months of the year, the floor area of commercial housing sales increased by 7.9%. Although the pace has slowed, this is still a good figure, based on last year's high base of more than 20%.
Given that the county economy still accounts for a large proportion of the country's urban economy, Yan said the destocking has a positive supporting effect on the country's real estate market transactions, and also prevents the risk of a sharp decline in market transactions.
Xie also stressed the importance of targeted destocking policies, saying that commercial real estate destocking is more urgent than residential destocking. "Commercial real estate inventory overhang risk is higher than residential inventory, 2018 focus is not only residential housing inventory reduction, the key is commercial real estate inventory reduction."