Reporter Sun Wei
On March 18th, the National Bureau of Statistics announced the basic situation of the national real estate market. From January to February, the housing construction area of real estate development enterprises was 6,669.02 million square meters, down 11.0% year-on-year; The newly started housing area was 94.29 million square meters, down by 29.7%; The completed housing area was 103.95 million square meters, down by 20.2%. From January to February, the national investment in real estate development was 1,184.2 billion yuan, down 9.0% year-on-year, of which residential investment was 882.3 billion yuan, down 9.7%. Liu Aihua, chief economist of the National Bureau of Statistics, said that the real estate market is still in the process of adjustment and transformation, and the next step is to implement the clear deployment of the real estate industry made by the National People’s Congress and the National People’s Congress, so as to further promote the stable, healthy and high-quality development of the real estate market.
New home sales fell year-on-year
Specifically, from January to February, the sales area of newly-built commercial housing was 113.69 million square meters, down 20.5% year-on-year, of which the sales area of residential housing decreased by 24.8%. The sales volume of newly-built commercial housing was 1,056.6 billion yuan, down by 29.3%, of which residential sales decreased by 32.7%. At the end of February, the area of commercial housing for sale was 759.69 million square meters, a year-on-year increase of 15.9%. Among them, the residential area for sale increased by 23.8%.
Chen Wenjing, director of market research of China Central Finger Research Institute, said in an interview that the decline in new house sales compared with the same period of last year was mainly due to two reasons. First, driven by the centralized release of the backlog of demand for house purchase during the epidemic, new house sales continued to maintain a high scale at the beginning of last year, and the sales area of new houses was at a historical high in January and February last year. Second, during the Spring Festival this year, the holiday is long, and residents have a high enthusiasm for traveling, which has affected the pace of housing demand entering the market to some extent.
According to the data of the middle finger, from January to February, the transaction area of second-hand residential buildings in key 25 cities decreased by 13.1% year-on-year, which was significantly lower than that of new houses. Chen Wenjing believes that this shows that the second-hand housing market has maintained a certain degree of activity, which shows that the demand for buying houses is still steadily released, and the second-hand housing transactions are active, which is expected to provide more replacement and improvement demand for the new housing market in the future.
According to Wang Xiaoyu, chief analyst of Zhuge Data Research Center, the performance of the new housing market has been sluggish since the beginning of the year. On the one hand, the supply scale of new houses in January and February this year remained at a historical low; On the other hand, second-hand houses continue to divert the demand for new houses. The second-hand housing market has sufficient housing, and the surrounding facilities of second-hand housing are generally more mature, so it still maintains the trend that the transaction performance of second-hand housing is better than that of new housing. With the arrival of the "Golden Three Silver Four" sales season, the market turnover will usher in an upward trend, but it is estimated that it is difficult to surpass last year’s turnover level.
The decline in development investment narrowed.
Judging from the investment in real estate development, there have been some positive changes in the first two months. From January to February, the investment in real estate development decreased by 9.0% year-on-year, which was 0.6 percentage points narrower than that of the previous year.
Wang Xiaoying said that the decline in investment in real estate development has improved, mainly due to land acquisition. In the beginning of the year, many cities launched high-quality land plots, such as Hangzhou and Beijing, where the market heat is heating up. With the recent reduction of LPR by the central bank and the support of the two sessions for the real estate market, the new model of real estate development will enter a new stage. In March, the market will enter the peak season of Xiaoyangchun, and the decline in real estate development investment will continue to improve.
Yan Yuejin, research director of Yiju Research Institute, believes that the real estate development investment index has shown a low opening trend, but the overall risk is controllable. There are two positive signals that need attention: First, the year-on-year decline in development investment has narrowed, which means that the shrinking state of development investment last year has been contained, which is a positive signal for the supply side to stabilize; Second, the competitive structure of housing enterprises has been continuously adjusted. At present, enterprises that have the ability to invest in development are healthier and have stronger financial capabilities.
Good policies help development.
In 2024, the Central Economic Work Conference and the National People’s Congress put forward clear requirements for optimizing the real estate policy and promoting the stable and healthy development of the real estate market, demanding to adapt to the development trend of new urbanization and the changes in the relationship between supply and demand in the real estate market, accelerate the construction of a new real estate development model, increase the construction and supply of affordable housing, improve the basic system related to commercial housing, and meet the residents’ demand for rigid housing and diversified and improved housing. Liu Aihua said that the implementation of these policies and measures will contribute to the stable, healthy and high-quality development of the real estate market.
Chen Wenjing thinks. At present, the coordination mechanism of real estate financing in various places has been accelerated, and funds for many projects are in place, which is expected to further repair the market expectations of enterprises and residents. Since March, the effect of the core city policy has continued to appear. The second-hand housing transactions in several cities have reached a high level since the second half of last year, and the sales scale of the new housing market has also rebounded moderately. For example, the recent cancellation of the second-hand housing purchase restriction policy in Hangzhou has further boosted market confidence. In the short term, local demand-side policies are expected to continue to be optimized and adjusted. It is expected that the real estate market activity in core cities will be further enhanced, and the "Xiaoyangchun" market in some cities is still expected.
Yan Yuejin, research director of Yiju Research Institute, believes that from the actual feedback, the housing transaction market has begun to show signs of stabilization. All localities have a better understanding of housing prices and are willing to further exchange prices for quantity to boost sales data. At the same time, various favorable policies continue to be released, which has begun to be reflected in the volume of house viewing and transaction volume. Judging from the actual transaction situation, the market transactions of some large-sized units are better, indicating that the demand for improved housing is also being actively released.