Depth report

　　

There are different opinions about the situation of China's real estate market in 2015. The media and "experts" dominated by relevant stakeholders often "yinggeyanwu" public opinion. It seems that China's real estate will always be a big and red market that only rises and does not fall. Although compared to 2014, the property market last year was a few first-tier cities and a few second- and third-tier cities "from green to red" (The latest data on housing prices in 70 large and medium-sized cities released by the National Bureau of Statistics of China yesterday showed that the rise in housing prices across the country in 2015 The number of cities is 21), but this does not affect the promotion of deceptive slogans such as "Don't buy a house this year, you will be busy all year".

    According to the latest data released by the National Bureau of Statistics of China: Compared with China’s 2015 GDP growth of 6.9%, the growth of investment in real estate development last year has fallen to an incredible 1.0% (investment amounted to 9597.9 billion yuan). RMB), while the year-on-year growth of fixed asset investment in the same period reached 10% (reaching 55159 billion yuan).

    Perhaps, the only thing that seems comforting is that in 2015, the area and sales of commercial housing in China increased by 6.5% and 14.4%, respectively. However, if you go deeper, you will find that such "high indicators" are basically due to historical factors: First, the area of commercial housing sales in 2014 fell too much (up to 7.6%, which is 1.1 percentage points higher than the increase in 2015). ), the current "high growth" is actually just making up the difference; the second is due to the increased destocking efforts this year. The newly-started area of housing, which is more representative of the developer's "confidence index", has dropped by 14% compared with 2014.

    A thorough study of this report reveals the three major sticking points that hinder the development of China's real estate market in 2016. In addition to the "high inventory" in the market that has been repeatedly emphasized by the top, the other two are "runaway" and "stagflation." Judging from the current situation of China's real estate market and the data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the latter two are no less serious than the former.

Purchasing power and high housing prices, "scissors gap", high inventory under the ever-expanding

    The "destocking" of the real estate market, which is listed as one of the five major tasks of China's economic development this year, is actually the fact that the built and under construction commercial housing is increasingly backlogged and unsold, and the demand for housing consumption in the market is overwhelmed by high housing prices. With hundreds of millions of "houseless households" in China's cities and towns, the above-mentioned problems have arisen, and it cannot be said that there is a problem with China's housing supply system. According to the latest political discourse, it belongs to the typical "supply-side structural" reform category.

    There are three representative statements about the current inventory of the real estate market: One is that the country’s "ghost town" can actually house 3.4 billion people. In fact, this is an academician criticizing that the population planned for the new urban area in the country has reached 3.4 billion, and there is no “half dime relationship” with the built backlog of stock houses; there is also a saying that the 6.9% for sale nationwide in November last year One hundred million square meters of commercial housing is regarded as the total inventory, missing billions of square meters of housing under construction; the latest eye-catching third argument is that the total inventory to be digested in China is about 14.09 billion square meters. As everyone knows, the total residential area of cities and towns across the country is now more than 15 billion square meters.

    So, what is the actual total inventory of the national real estate market? First of all, we should know that the inventory problem in the real estate market we are talking about mainly refers to residential commercial houses. The report just released provides the latest authoritative report at least in terms of first-level market additions. This kind of narrow concept of commercial housing inventory generally refers to the areas for sale of newly-built commercial housing in cities and towns across the country (Note: China’s real estate market only includes commercial housing in cities and towns) and the floor space of all houses under construction. As long as the two data in the statistical report are added together, the true result can be obtained.

    However, in a broad sense, the inventory of commercial housing should not only include completed or unfinished commercial housing in the hands of developers, but also include a large number of idle commercial housing in the hands of investors and speculators that are only used for investment profits. . Although these commercial houses are second-hand houses, these unused properties in stock are also "stock products", which will also have a great impact and impact on the market. Taking into account the reality of the high degree of “uneven wealth” among urban residents in China, the inventory in this area can account for about one-fifth of the existing urban housing stock (about 16 billion square meters) in the country, which is about 3.2 billion square meters.

    First of all, according to the latest data, by the end of 2015, the floor space of China's commercial housing for sale was 718.53 million square meters, a year-on-year increase of 15.6%. Among them, the residential area for sale was 452.48 million square meters, an increase of 11.2% year-on-year. In the whole year of 2015, the construction area of houses of Chinese real estate development enterprises was 735.693 million square meters. Among them, the residential construction area is 5115.7 million square meters.

    Based on this calculation, by the end of 2015, the number of stock houses for sale in the primary real estate market (provided by developers) in China was as high as 8,0754.6 million square meters. Among them, the area of all residential commercial houses stocked by real estate development companies that are the most concerned by the society is as high as about 5.56818 billion square meters (Note: China's real estate market only counts urban areas, excluding rural areas where they build their own houses).

    Based on the above data, it can be concluded that by the end of 2015, the actual inventory of residential commercial housing in the first and second level real estate market in China has reached 8.76818 billion square meters (note: the inventory of all houses has exceeded 10 billion square meters). Calculated according to the current housing standard of 33 square meters per capita, it can provide 266 million urban residents with decent well-off housing, which is equivalent to meeting the demand for well-off housing of more than one third (34.45%) of the current urban population in the country (by the end of 2015) The country’s urban permanent population is 77.16 million).

    It must be pointed out here that the destocking of the real estate market is not a topic that only occurs today. After October 2014, both developer interest groups and officials from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development began to speak out for this in order to seek resonance from the top and further support in policies. The chairman of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce Real Estate Chamber of Commerce used "severe" to describe the real estate market at that time. Ren Zhiqiang, who prided himself as the "premier of real estate", admitted that the real estate inventory had reached the highest point in history, and called on real estate developers to do a good job. "Destocking the protracted battle" preparations. Even Beijing, where market speculation was the most speculative, had a record high in property market inventory at that time. According to reports, in early December, the total number of commercial residential houses available for sale in Beijing reached 93,000 units, a record high in 32 months.

    The “most severe” national real estate inventory report at that time was still from a director of the Research Center of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. According to her, as of October 2014, the proportion of national commercial housing sales to the area of commercial housing under construction reached the lowest point in history, and 90% of the houses under construction had not been sold. According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics at that time, the country's unsold housing stock under construction was as high as 8 billion square meters.

    After Chinese President Xi Jinping made a speech on real estate inventory not long ago, it seems that the resolution of real estate inventory has finally become the top priority of the central real estate policy in accordance with the will of real estate developers. Developers can finally be greatly relieved from the pressure of high inventory to reduce prices. A real estate market reform and housing supply model revolution that should have come, seems to have slipped quietly. In fact, after more than a year of a new round of real estate rescue by the Chinese government since the second half of 2014, coupled with the guidance of public opinion controlled by real estate developers, the "expectations" have been raised. The current inventory pressure in China's real estate market is higher than that of a year ago. Has been relatively lightened a lot. In 2015, the sales of commercial housing nationwide accounted for 17.5% of the total area of commercial housing under construction (in 2015, the sales area of commercial housing nationwide was 1,284.95 million square meters, and the construction area of houses was 735.693 million square meters), and the proportion of sales to construction increased suddenly 7.5 percentage points or more.

    In fact, for Chinese policymakers, the most critical issue now is not so much the blind rescue of the market to "de-stock", it is better to take the opportunity to plan the reform of the housing supply model and use the revolution of the housing supply model to make more than 8.8 billion square meters. Whether rice’s houses can be sold smoothly and become a real effective supply.

One-third of the total development is "off the road", and real estate developers also look down on the bubble market with high housing prices

    The most serious problem in China's real estate market in 2015 was the phenomenon of "away from the real estate market" that quickly spread among developers in the second half of the previous year. This is the worst problem currently encountered by the industry.

    At the end of 2014, there were media reports that Li Ka-shing "selled mainland properties and assets" on a large scale. According to informal statistics, from January 2014 to April 2015, Li Ka-shing cashed in nearly RMB 80 billion through asset transfers or other means. Following the "Li Chaoren", in December 2015, there was news that New World Real Estate, which is owned by another Hong Kong super-rich Zheng Yutong's family, sold mainland real estate on a large scale. At the beginning of the month, the four projects in Haikou, Wuhan and Huizhou were sold to Evergrande Real Estate for 13.5 billion yuan. At the end of the month, it was heard that the two super markets in Chengdu and Guiyang were transferred to the latter for 7.3 billion yuan. According to reports, Zheng Yutong's family has thrown a total of 9 mainland projects to Evergrande within this month, with a total area of 12 million square meters and a total amount of 33.9 billion yuan.

    Of course, it is far more than Hong Kong's richest people who "run the road". In this year, real estate developers such as Feng Lun and Pan Shiyi, the "most thoughtful" in the real estate industry, as well as well-known real estate companies such as Zhejiang Guangsha, Zendai Real Estate, Rheinland and Hyde, all announced their withdrawal from real estate. However, a large number of small and medium-sized real estate companies that have withdrawn from the real estate market the most are still unknown. Their collective "running" has reduced the land purchase area of real estate companies across the country by about one-third since 2015.

    Within a few days of the New Year, it was reported that Wang Jianlin, the richest man in China, and its commercial real estate leader Wanda, will significantly lower the real estate sales target in 2016, from 160 billion yuan in 2015 sales to 100 billion yuan in 2016. yuan. It is said that this year will be a landmark year for Wanda's transformation, and the service industry will surpass real estate for the first time. In the future, Wanda will "no longer be a real estate company." Business, culture, finance and e-commerce will become its new core industries.

    The latest data again confirms the phenomenon of real estate developers fleeing from the "real estate arena" in large numbers. One of the most important signs is that many real estate development companies across the country no longer want to purchase land for real estate development. In fact, compared with the year-on-year decrease of 31.7% (only 228.11 million square meters) of land purchased by national real estate development companies in 2015, the land purchased by national real estate development companies in 2013 increased by 8.8% over the previous year, reaching 38814 10,000 square meters; when the national real estate market was sluggish in 2014, the area of land purchased in that year only dropped by 14% (333.83 million square meters).

    Real estate companies’ unoptimistic expectations for the market prospects are not only reflected in the substantial reduction in land purchases, but also in real estate development indicators such as the newly started area and completed area of houses, there has also been a nationwide setback. In 2015, the area of newly constructed houses across the country dropped by 14% (decreased by 14.6% for residential buildings), and the area of completed residential houses also dropped by 6.9%. If a market, even a market where manufacturers and suppliers themselves start to "run off", how can it have a "bright future" and how can it continue to serve as the "pillar" of economic development?

Stagflation has reduced China's real estate from a "pillar industry" to a dragging "negative energy"

    Compared with the 7% GDP growth target set by the Chinese government at the beginning of last year, the growth rate of national real estate development investment in 2015 has dropped from 10.4% in January at the beginning of the year to an unprecedented 1% by the end of the year. In 2015, China's real estate development investment was 9597.9 billion yuan, which is lower than the total investment growth of 1%. Residential investment only increased by 0.4% (64595 billion yuan, accounting for 67.3% of real estate development investment), and investment in these two aspects The growth rate once again dropped significantly from January to November.

    Although real estate development and residential investment seem to be “growth”, if you compare them horizontally and vertically, it is not difficult to find that, as a former “pillar industry”, 1% of China’s real estate investment and market in 2015 The growth rate of investment has become an out-and-out "breaker." In 2015, the national investment in fixed assets (excluding rural households) was 55,159 billion yuan, a nominal increase of 10% over the previous year (after deducting price factors, an actual increase of 12%), which is in sharp contrast to the 1% increase in real estate investment.

    If you look at it from a historical perspective, it may be more able to clarify the seriousness of the problem in the Chinese real estate market. When China's real estate investment grew the fastest, the growth rate was as high as 30% or more (for example, the national real estate development investment growth rate from January to October 2011 was as high as 31.1%). Judging from the annual national real estate investment growth rate, in 2013, the national real estate development investment growth rate was as high as 19.8%. Even in 2014, when the real estate market situation was the worst, the national real estate development investment growth rate also reached double digits. At 10.5%.

    "High inventory, runaway, stagflation", these unprecedented "fading images" presented by the Chinese real estate market today, make China's top decision-makers who want to give them a "big responsibility" in 2016, making decisions on housing policies and the real estate market It becomes more tortuous and complicated.

    People still remember the China Central Economic Work Conference that was held not long ago. After the meeting, whether it was the media or the public opinion of all parties, the most talked about was not the "13th Five-Year Plan", but "disappeared" at the Central Economic Work Conference in the past two years, and now it has been "highly discussed" by the Economic Work Conference. China’s real estate industry has become increasingly prominent.

    Compared with the "not mentioned" cold reception of the previous two years, this time the China Central Economic Work Conference highlighted real estate to a "high" that was unmatched in the past. Not only did the narrative about real estate in the thousands of words of the press release accounted for more than 300 words, but it was also divided into separate paragraphs as the third item of the "Five Tasks" of China's economy in 2016.

    Why is China's real estate "new favorite" again two years after being "pushed into the cold palace" by top decision makers? In the final analysis, the key lies in the fact that China’s economic growth has slipped into a “slow” new normal. Under the environment where all the people above and below are “zhan carefully” looking for new breakthroughs in economic growth, they have played an extremely important role in China’s high-speed economic growth in the past. China's real estate market, which has an important "supporting role", has played a negative role of "extremely weak" at the critical time of the economic upswing in the past two years. How to rejuvenate the "youth" of China's real estate market and make it "rejuvenate" at a critical moment of China's economic growth may be the expectations of China's top decision makers on China's real estate market.

    However, the latest data from China’s real estate market and the National Bureau of Statistics in 2015 are ruthless proof.

It is clear that, at least under the current real estate and housing supply model, Chinese real estate developers will not only have difficulty reshaping their “magnitude” and once again take on the role of the “new pillar” of economic development, nor can they even fundamentally change their declining “high inventory, running high”. Even people in the real estate industry are very aware of the situation of “roads and stagflation”.

    In 2016, China’s real estate reached a new critical point: on the one hand, the Chinese economy and top-level decision makers with weak economic strength and lack of growth have renewed their high expectations for China’s real estate market; The housing price developer model has made the real estate industry unsustainable.

    In fact, what China's real estate has never lacked is not a market, but a housing supply model that can make housing affordable for ordinary people. After all, the largest urban-rural migration of hundreds of millions of people in human history in China over the past few decades has brought unlimited dividends to the development of China's real estate industry. The core problem is that the existing model of high housing prices has long become the "tumor" of the huge obstruction between demand and supply in this day.

    Now, China's real estate market has come to a new era of "tumor" removal. Only in this way can the bottleneck problems of high inventory, runaways and stagflation that check and balance the development of China's real estate market can truly be solved.