Viewpoint： Communication on current real estate market policy adjustment.
Xinhua Online Haihai, December 17th (Xinhua News Agency "Xinhua Viewpoint" reporter Xu Shousong) "We have everything we need, and the strength of the policy exceeds market expectations." On the evening of 17th, an account manager of Daning Store of Zhongyuan Real Estate could not conceal his surprise on the phone. "Business tax will not be levied after buying a house for two years, but we thought it would take at least three years."
To the real estate agent’s surprise, three measures to promote the healthy development of the property market were determined by the the State Council executive meeting on the 17th.
In a short time, the four swords are drawn.
On the 17th, the the State Council executive meeting studied and determined three measures to promote the healthy development of the property market: increasing the construction of affordable housing, solving the housing problem of nearly 10 million families with housing difficulties within three years, and building affordable housing with idle funds from the provident fund on a pilot basis. Further encourage the consumption of ordinary commodity housing, loosen the preferential policy of improving the "second suite" and carry out a one-year (tentative) tax reduction: as long as the house bought is over 2 years, the transfer will be exempted from business tax. If you want to sell it for less than 2 years, you will only be taxed on the money you earn, and you will not be taxed on the loss; At the same time, the urban real estate tax will be abolished. To maintain a reasonable scale of investment in real estate development, in the past year, it was first proposed to provide financing and related financial services for mergers and acquisitions of real estate development enterprises with strength and credibility.
In addition to the central policy, it has also reserved a lot of room for local governments to "rescue the market": all regions should adjust measures to local conditions and "further adopt policies and measures to promote the healthy development of the real estate market".
As soon as the news came out, the major websites received rave reviews, calling them "fierce moves" and "New Deal" in succession. In fact, in just over forty days, this is the fourth "sword" drawn to stabilize the real estate market. On November 5th, the State Council put forward ten measures to further expand domestic demand and promote economic growth. "Speeding up the construction of affordable housing projects, increasing support for low-rent housing construction, speeding up the transformation of shanty towns, implementing nomadic settlement projects, and expanding the pilot renovation of dilapidated houses in rural areas" was listed as the first of the "National Ten". Then, "promoting the stable and healthy development of the real estate market" has become one of the seven tasks for the State Council to hold a meeting of leading comrades of provincial and municipal people’s governments and departments and to deploy and implement central policies and measures. The status of the real estate industry has been raised to an unprecedented height, with the word "important" before the positioning of the "pillar industry" in the past, that is, "the real estate industry is an important pillar industry of the national economy, which plays an important role in stimulating the development of industries such as steel, building materials and household appliances, and is crucial to the stability and development of the financial industry, and plays an important role in promoting the upgrading of residents’ consumption structure and improving people’s livelihood". At the recently concluded Central Economic Work Conference, two of the five key tasks in 2009 all talked about the real estate industry, "We should combine the desire of residents to reasonably improve their living conditions with the role of real estate as a pillar industry", and "increase the supply of affordable housing, reduce the burden of residents’ reasonable purchase of self-occupied ordinary commodity housing, and give full play to the positive role of real estate in expanding domestic demand".
Why "save the property market"? Good economy can make everyone good.
So intensive introduction of policies to stabilize the property market, and compared with the property administration a year ago, there are major adjustments, where is the intention?
First of all, the property market is closely related to the macro-economy, and only when the economy is good can everyone be good.
On December 10th, Morgan Stanley Research Department released the latest economic research report on China, and held that the typical feature of China’s economy in 2009 was "deterioration followed by improvement", but real estate investment was the biggest uncertain factor to judge the growth expectation in 2009. Because the key reason for the rapid economic slowdown is the slowdown of real estate investment rather than weak exports. According to this report, if the real estate investment shrinks by 30% in 2009, the huge adverse impact will not be compensated even by the existing fiscal stimulus plan.
It must be admitted that in the composition of fixed assets investment in the whole society, real estate investment closely related to more than 50 industries has one third of the world. According to the data, as of July 2008, the sum of electric power and heat energy, transportation and water conservancy environment accounted for less than 25% of fixed assets investment, manufacturing investment exceeded 30%, and real estate investment accounted for more than 33%. This determines that infrastructure investment alone is not enough to prop up economic growth, and pure government investment is also difficult to make up for the decline in real estate and manufacturing investment. At present, the manufacturing industry, especially the ordinary manufacturing industry, is having a hard time, and the real estate market is also undergoing obvious adjustment. In the first 11 months, the growth rate of national commercial residential investment dropped by 2.2 percentage points year-on-year. The shrinking demand for real estate investment has produced a chain reaction, which gradually affects related industries, such as steel, building materials and furniture.
As for the dependence of local finance on real estate, it goes without saying. Nowadays, with the cooling of the real estate market, the transaction is frozen and the land is flowing, and the local finance is unprecedentedly tight.
In this case, it is necessary to boost the real estate industry again to promote investment and protect the economy. Real estate has been pushed to "an important pillar industry of the national economy", and affordable housing projects have been listed as the first of the "Ten Articles of the State", so the policy mix clearly conveys the orientation of "saving real estate first to ensure development" and "promoting investment cannot be separated from stabilizing the property market".
"The economy’s excessive dependence on real estate is a fact that can’t be changed in the short term. At the moment, we can’t find an industry to replace the real estate to drive the economy." Cai Suisheng, a real estate expert and president of Guangdong Real Estate Association, said.
The root of stimulating domestic demand with real estate consumption is to pull investment, maintain growth, promote employment and stabilize the overall situation. From this point of view, we can correctly understand that the Central Economic Work Conference proposed that "meeting residents’ desire to improve their living conditions reasonably should be combined with giving full play to the role of real estate as a pillar industry", and that "the supply of affordable housing should be increased, the burden of residents’ reasonable purchase of self-occupied ordinary commercial housing should be reduced, and the positive role of real estate in expanding domestic demand should be brought into play".
On the frozen soil of real estate, the combination of "guarantee" and "market" will be developed.
"What are the similarities and differences between starting domestic demand under the financial tsunami in 2008 and stimulating domestic demand under the Asian financial turmoil in 1998?" Hu Yijian, a professor at the School of Public Economics and Management of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, said: "Ten years ago, one of the fulcrums to incite domestic demand was real estate, and it will still be ten years later; However, the previous time relied on the commercial housing market, and this time the foothold was affordable housing and people’s livelihood. "
That’s true. On the 17th, in the the State Council executive meeting to study and deploy policies and measures to promote the healthy development of the real estate market, we made it clear at the beginning that "two persistences" were: adhering to the basic direction of housing marketization and the principle of implementing the housing security system for low-income people with housing difficulties. According to industry insiders, this is to cultivate the combination of "guarantee" and "market" on the "frozen soil" of real estate.
Different from the previous round of investment expansion (1998-2002), the real estate industry was particularly focused on marketization. This round of investment expansion considered the promotion of investment and the protection of people’s livelihood together, and made it clear that "investment acquisition, development and construction of affordable housing such as low-rent housing and affordable housing should be increased". Experts in the industry believe that the adjustment of policy orientation has three meanings:
-As far as economy is concerned, it is a favorable time window for the government to promote the construction of housing security and solve the housing problem. In the years before the first half of this year, the international economy maintained a relatively rapid growth rate, which brought about a global increase in resource prices, especially the prices of building materials and land. In addition, with the expansion and bubble of assets, the domestic real estate market and the capital market were linked, and the "land kings" in cities frequently appeared, and the cost of building houses rose steadily. Now, the global economic slowdown has caused the prices of oil, steel and other commodities to continue to dive, and the domestic construction cost has been greatly reduced. At the same time, the land price is lower, and the relocation cost is also reduced. Microscopically, it can reduce the construction cost of affordable housing, spend relatively little money to do relatively many things, achieve better economic benefits, and macroscopically, it can stimulate investment and ensure stable economic growth. This is an economic effect.
-The political significance lies in conforming to public opinion, solving people’s livelihood problems, and implementing Scientific Outlook on Development.
-The social effect is that the government can use the construction of affordable housing to calm down and eliminate the incomprehension and resentment of some people who expect the housing prices to continue to fall and do not understand the government’s rescue of the market and stabilize the real estate market. Let these people feel that the government rescues real estate in order to stabilize the whole macro-economy, and provides a way out for low-and middle-income groups-government guarantee. There may be some differences between the long-term interest orientation of the government to save the property market and stabilize housing prices and the short-term interest demands of ordinary people, and affordable housing is a good policy option to bridge the differences.
"After experiencing the high tide and low tide of real estate, the government has a deeper understanding of the real estate market and real estate industry, reducing bias, which is the result of macro-control." Cai Suisheng commented like this.
Editor: Li Xian