More than 20 cities have launched group purchases of new homes, and the official default is that real estate companies will sell them at reduced prices

Zhengzhou is another city where the government has come forward to encourage residents to buy commercial housing in groups.

Recently, the "Zhengzhou Commercial Housing Group Buying Fair" hosted by the Zhengzhou Municipal People's Government and hosted by the Zhengdong New District Management Committee, Zhengzhou Housing Security and Real Estate Administration, and Zhengzhou Housing and Real Estate Industry Association was held in Zhengzhou Held to support emerging industrial units, scientific research institutions, industrial parks and other units to focus on group purchasing commercial housing to solve employee housing problems.

“Now that the epidemic prevention and control is gradually relaxed, this event is to encourage everyone to consume and boost the confidence of home buyers.” A local intermediary in Zhengzhou said that there are indeed unified purchases for specific units, but generally Home buyers can participate in this activity through an intermediary and get the lowest group buying price. The intermediary will recommend customers to the property and calculate it at the end of the month.

Not only Zhengzhou, this year more than 20 cities including Enshi, Guiyang, Zunyi, Tonglu, Tongling, Bazhong, Huanggang, Changchun, Lianyungang, and Shaoxing have released policies or activities related to group purchasing of commercial housing. Hubei Enshi, Guizhou and other places even announced that the preferential prices for group-purchased commercial housing will not be included in the range of registered price decreases.

In the view of the above-mentioned real estate professionals in Zhengzhou, such activities are actually price cuts in disguise to stimulate the consumption of home buyers. The actual results remain to be seen. "There is a recovery trend in the market now, but there has not been a big change compared to some time ago."

Benefits to home buyers

In order to boost the activity of the property market, in addition to introducing formal regulations, local governments Policies, group buying activities for commercial housing are also emerging one after another.

The latest place is Zhengzhou. According to Zhao Hongjun, Party Secretary and Director of the Zhengzhou Housing Security and Real Estate Administration Bureau, the purpose of the above-mentioned activities is to give full play to the advantages of the new real estate policy, better implement decision-making and deployment, prevent and resolve risks, protect people's livelihood and maintain social stability, quickly restore market vitality, improve Boost market confidence.

It is reported that group-purchased houses must be existing or quasi-existing houses (completed and delivered within one year) with "five certificates". There are favorable policies in terms of down payment ratio, deed tax subsidies, provident fund loans, etc., and real estate is encouraged. Development companies provide more discounts.

In the view of many real estate professionals interviewed in Zhengzhou, the previous recurrence of the epidemic in Zhengzhou has had a certain impact on the local commercial housing market. This type of group buying activities can boost consumer confidence and at the same time provide more price concessions. Home Buyers. In the short term, it will help promote the completion of transactions for those willing to buy homes and increase the enthusiasm of home buyers to enter the market.

Zhengzhou’s property market has indeed experienced a long period of downturn. CRIC's Henan regional research report stated that due to the epidemic in November, Zhengzhou was almost in a "semi-stop" state, with market activity dropping to a low point and transaction volume falling by nearly 70% month-on-month. In the first eleven months, the sales amount threshold for the top 20 real estate companies dropped by 42% year-on-year. The sales target completion rate of most real estate companies was only about 30%, and only a few central enterprises had outstanding sales performance.

In order to attract home buyers, real estate companies in Zhengzhou have tried their best. In addition to seizing online sales channels, they have also introduced policies such as multiple discounts and no-reason check-outs. However, the transaction volume in November still fell month-on-month. 69, down 90% year-on-year, the lowest value in the past year. Although real estate companies continue to release discounts, the actual effect is getting weaker and weaker, and the performance of real estate companies in central China is particularly dismal.

Thus, this type of government-endorsed activity to boost consumer confidence came into being. At the aforementioned group buying meeting, the Zhengzhou government further emphasized that the real estate industry is an important part of Zhengzhou’s economic and social development. The healthy development of the real estate market is of great significance to stabilizing the economy, ensuring people’s livelihood and social stability, and preventing and resolving financial risks.

In addition to carrying out group buying activities for commercial housing, Zhengzhou has also introduced a number of policies, including moderately adjusting the housing purchase restriction policy, ensuring equal treatment for new citizens buying houses, expanding effective demand for housing, promoting both renting and purchasing, and implementing tax incentives for house purchases. policies, carry out home purchase subsidies, optimize financial services for new citizens to purchase homes, implement the policy of "subscribe for loans but not for houses", etc.

Chen Wenjing, market research director of the Index Division of the China Index Research Institute, believes that group buying will be coupled with relevant policy support, which will help increase the enthusiasm of home buyers to enter the market in the short term, and the transaction volume of new homes is expected to improve.

In the medium to long term, the catalytic effect on less willing home buyers is not obvious, and the subsequent market still depends on policy support and the improvement of residents' income levels.

Group buying has become popular

Before Zhengzhou, many cities had tried this kind of activity. A few days ago, Hubei Enshi Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau issued a document stating that it supports state-owned enterprises to use group purchases of newly built commercial housing as affordable rental housing to solve the housing difficulties of people engaged in basic public services. The preferential prices for group-purchased commercial housing are not included in the range of registered price declines for commercial housing.

On October 10, the General Office of the Guizhou Provincial People's Government also issued a document to implement greater phased support policies for housing provident funds, strengthen the optimization and implementation of policies that have been introduced, and effectively guide home purchase consumption. Employees of government agencies, enterprises and institutions are encouraged to carry out group purchases of commercial housing, and the preferential prices for group purchases are not included in the range of registered price decreases for commercial housing.

In early November, a group purchase activity for commercial housing for employees, led by the Guiyang Federation of Trade Unions, was officially launched. The rules of the activity are clear: the selling price of mobile properties will be lower than the usual selling price of the corresponding real estate, and will be the lowest price within 2 years. Many banks have followed up and provided discounts on home purchases through measures such as additional discounts for home purchases, green channels for loans, and preferential loan interest rates.

Previously, in order to stabilize the real estate market, many local governments issued "price reduction orders" to restrict the arbitrary price reductions of real estate companies. According to incomplete statistics, since the second half of last year, more than 20 cities across the country have issued "price reduction orders" "Some directly issued administrative orders, and some interviewed real estate companies to restrict malicious price reductions, otherwise they would not grant online visas.

In 2022, the number of cities that have restricted price reductions has decreased, and there are Many cities have relaxed the price limits for new homes. Nowadays, the preferential prices for local group buying activities are not included in the range of registered price declines for commercial housing. The industry believes that various regions have more flexibility and space in regulating commercial housing prices.

"Development companies must put an end to the 'lay flat' mentality. The real estate market is currently in a downturn, but the real estate market is cyclical. The downturn will also be the beginning of the recovery period, and it is even more important to boost confidence at this time. Development companies must dare to put out good housing resources so that citizens participating in group purchases can buy satisfactory housing. "Zunyi, which also held a group buying event, said.

In fact, in cities that have come up with this new "prescription" to rescue the market, the property market is relatively sluggish.

Take Guiyang as an example. Kerui said that the Guiyang market has fallen into a period of deep adjustment, and the downward pressure on the market has continued to intensify. In the past two years, the decline in transactions has accelerated. In 2022, the downward pressure on the Guiyang market will further intensify. In the first ten months, the cumulative transactions in the main urban area were 3.25 million square meters, a year-on-year decrease. 39. The overall decline is accelerating.

“Due to the intensifying downward pressure on Guiyang’s market, real estate companies have continued to increase their promotional efforts, and discounts such as special-price housing and work-related housing have been implemented in turn, but the actual results have been little. . "Crerry Research reported that except for the relatively strong housing prices in Guanshan Lake District, housing prices in other areas are expected to fall across the board. Under the psychological expectation of "buying up, not buying down", the market's wait-and-see mood has become increasingly intense.

Kerui said that the Guiyang government's price guarantee will boost market confidence to a certain extent and stimulate the release of concentrated demand for home purchases. Short-term transactions may increase significantly. However, in the long term, it will take a long time for the Guiyang market to truly stabilize. , after all, it is not easy to reverse market confidence, and market demand and purchasing power also take time to accumulate.

Cao Jingjing, research director of the Index Division of the China Index Research Institute, believes that it is affected by factors such as industry downturn and residents’ weak employment and income expectations. , since the beginning of this year, the wait-and-see attitude of the group who just need to buy a house has been strong, while the willingness to buy a house of the group who want to buy a house for improvement is better than that of the group who want to buy a house, and the proportion of improvement residential products with large units and high total price has increased.

"In improvement. When sexual demand is strongly supported, it is necessary to increase policy support. Before the property market stabilizes, there is still room for optimization of loan restriction policies in first- and second-tier cities and purchase restriction policies in suburbs. "Cao Jingjing said.

BoC Securities stated that many second-tier cities have recently introduced demand-side relaxation policies. Nanjing has lowered the down payment ratio for second-home apartments, Wuhan has lifted purchase restrictions outside the Second Ring Road, Xiamen has adjusted purchase restrictions outside the island, and Foshan has canceled purchase restrictions throughout the city. It is expected that In the future, demand-side relaxation policies in high-energy cities will continue to be implemented, and will focus on adjustments to loan restrictions and purchase restrictions to promote the healthy and stable development of the industry.