During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, housing space planning should be regarded as an important dimension, and urban agglomerations should be used as the basic unit, including real estate regulation, monitoring, public services, and infrastructure construction, which should be b

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, housing space planning should be taken as an important dimension, and urban agglomerations should be used as the basic unit, including real estate regulation, monitoring, public services, and infrastructure construction, which should be based on urban agglomerations.

text | "Finance" reporter Zhang Han

edited | Wang Yanchun

In 2020, the new crown pneumonia epidemic was raging, but the resilience of China's economy was highlighted. As a "stabilizer" and "ballast stone" of economic development, real estate performed beyond expectations. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the risks of the real estate industry, as one of the largest "gray rhino" in terms of financial risks at this stage, how to curb the risks of the real estate bubble and promote the stable and healthy development of the market has become a hot topic in all sectors of society.

At the press conference of the "China Housing Development Report (2020-2021)" held on December 21, Ni Pengfei, assistant director and researcher of the Institute of Finance and Economics Strategy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that in accelerating the construction of basic systems and long-term mechanisms in the real estate market, property tax should be used to drive the construction of long-term mechanisms, especially in some hot cities and cities where "housing speculation" has been repeatedly banned, and it is the first to accelerate the pilot real estate tax. He said that in the medium and long term, China will strive to be able to impose property tax during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period. Some people are worried that the imposition of property tax will bring about market fluctuations. This problem can be avoided through effective institutional design and systematic solutions, such as levying transaction tax first and then achieving full coverage in 20 years.

experts and scholars participating in the discussion suggested that China's urbanization is still in an accelerated period. We must adhere to the unswerving real estate regulation, grasp the pace of regulation, improve the national market supervision system of "one city, one policy", and improve the national housing, land, finance and other databases and monitoring systems. In the short term, it can be considered to promote the construction of an integrated networked regulation system within the province, strengthen provincial supervision responsibilities, and then gradually transition to coordinated regulation of urban agglomerations, or cross-regional coordinated regulation.

He Dexu, director of the Institute of Finance and Economics Strategy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said at the press conference that the 2020 Central Economic Work Conference proposed that it is necessary to rectify the order of the leasing market, standardize market behavior, and reasonably regulate the rent level. The development of China's housing rental market is not standardized, which has recently been reflected in some industry chaos, such as the "Eggshell" storm, which has seriously damaged the interests of tenants and landlords. "In the future, we must pay attention to the construction of affordable rental housing, accelerate the improvement of long-term rental housing policies, standardize the development of the long-term rental housing market, and make efforts from the supply side to solve the problem. In terms of land, the Central Economic Work Conference proposed that land supply should be tilted towards rental housing construction, which means that both state-owned and private enterprises should play a role."

In 2020, China's housing market showed a "V"-shaped reversal

" An important highlight of the real estate market in 2020 is that under the impact of the epidemic, housing sales hit a new high. Real estate investment has experienced a process from a sharp drop to a steady recovery growth and a 'V'-shaped process. Therefore, the stability of the housing market has played a very critical role in the stability of China's economic and social development. Compared with the sales market, the rental market has been hit harder by the epidemic, recovered slowly, and the hierarchical differentiation of cities is relatively obvious. "Ni Pengfei said at the press conference.

Although industry insiders generally believe that the recovery of the real estate market in 2020 is basically in line with expectations and has played a key role in the realization of the "six stability" and "six guarantees", it is undeniable that the hidden worries of the industry's development still exist, and some institutional problems do not have fundamental solutions.

Ni Pengfei gave an example, saying that at present, the phenomenon of house speculation has not been completely controlled. In addition, there are also games between the central government, local governments and market entities, which lead to local fluctuations under overall stability. Overall, the central government’s macro-real estate regulation policy has strong stability, so it ensures that the market is relatively stable, but there is a game, so there is always fluctuation. This trend will remain in the coming year.

Looking forward to the development of the real estate market in 2021 and the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, Ni Pengfei believes that 2021 is expected to continue to be stable.The annual increase in housing prices may still be around 5%, and sales may still hit a record high, but due to the impact of capital supervision, the growth rate of investment has slowed down. Overall, there are structural opportunities during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, which is surplus on the one hand, and there is potential on the other hand. From a time perspective, it was originally expected that the turning point of sales growth would appear in 2025, but now it is possible to be ahead of schedule. The reason is that sales have set record highs in the past few years. Such excessive sales have led to the turning point that may be ahead of 2025, which is possible during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period.

Data released by the Academy of Social Sciences this time shows that in the third quarter of 2021, Chinese residents' housing loans had exceeded 36 trillion yuan, and 60% of household debts relied on wage income almost entirely. The pressure on residents' debt repayment cannot be ignored. How to solve the problem of high repayment pressure on

? Gao Guangchun, an associate researcher at the Institute of Finance and Economics Strategy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, proposed three "cans": payable transactions, debt repayment and rescue mechanisms. Payable transactions are to provide residents with affordable housing to the greatest extent possible through some specific measures, such as legislative guarantees, policy relief, and diversified participation. Payable debts are to maintain the stability and sustainability of residents' debt repayment. First, stabilize residents' income; second, take appropriate policy measures, such as reduction and exemption of income taxes, property taxes, etc.; third, policy adjustments for housing provident fund loans should be mainly aimed at middle- and low-income groups, and there should be some restrictions or even prohibitions on middle- and high-income groups. The rescue mechanism means that when residents’ debts are unable to be paid, a public rescue mechanism is provided to improve residents’ debt repayment ability. A very important and effective measure is to issue the "Personal Bankruptcy Law" as soon as possible to provide an economic parachute mechanism when residents' debts cannot be repaid.

suggests that real estate tax be piloted in cities where "housing speculation" has been repeatedly banned

In recent years, in order to promote the stable and healthy development of the real estate market, the central government has proposed the positioning of "houses are for living, not for speculation", insisting on not using real estate as a means to stimulate the economy in the short term, and insisting on stabilizing land prices, housing prices and expectations. In order to improve the level of regulation and maintain the strategic determination of real estate regulation, the Central Economic Work Conference also proposed "fully implementing policies based on cities", "adapting to local conditions, and taking multiple policies at the same time".

Ni Pengfei suggested that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, housing planning must take housing space planning as an important dimension. When making unified planning, urban agglomeration should be based on urban agglomeration, including real estate regulation, monitoring, public services, and infrastructure construction. Taking Shenzhen as an example, the reason why the real estate market is so hot is because of limited land and cannot be solved within a city. If it is in a metropolitan area, there may be a good solution. Many central and hot cities across the country have such problems, which requires mechanism design.

In terms of accelerating the construction of basic systems and long-term mechanisms in the real estate market, Ni Pengfei believes that the levy of property tax should be used to drive the construction of long-term mechanisms, especially in some hot cities and cities where "housing speculation" has been repeatedly banned, and it will be the first to accelerate the pilot real estate tax. He said that in the medium and long term, China will strive to be able to impose property tax during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period. Some people are worried that the imposition of property tax will bring about market fluctuations. This problem can be avoided through effective institutional design and systematic solutions, such as levying transaction tax first and then achieving full coverage in 20 years.

Regarding the real estate regulation policy, Li Chao, associate researcher at the Institute of Finance and Economics Strategy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, suggested that, first, maintain the regulatory determination of the purchase, loan and price and sales restrictions, and consolidate the main responsibilities of local governments. Include cities with higher housing price and income expectations into the normalized monitoring system, and include the operating quality of the real estate market in the indicators of local governments' annual assessment. If the monthly monthly increase in housing prices in a city is higher than 1% and lasts for one quarter, it can be included in the early warning system and interview indicators. Secondly, establish a mass networking system for online signing systems.Promote networking based on urban agglomerations, including regulatory modes and linkage modes, and strive to consolidate this mechanism in the next cycle. Again, coordinate the operating rules of the new and existing housing markets. The regulatory problems in many places this year may be the inverted price of new and second-hand housing, which need to be paid attention to in the future regulation process. Finally, increase the difficulty of purchasing and holding costs of speculative investment needs, and further compress its profit margin.

How to build a housing system with equal rights to renting and purchasing and both rental and purchasing?

Since 2020, actively cultivating the rental market and developing policy-based rental housing have become a new hot spot. The "14th Five-Year Plan" proposes to effectively increase the supply of affordable housing, improve the land transfer income distribution mechanism, explore and support the use of collective construction land to build rental housing in accordance with the plan, improve long-term rental housing policies, and expand the supply of affordable rental housing.

html National Housing and Urban-Rural Development Work Conference held on November 21 pointed out that next year, we will vigorously develop rental housing and solve the prominent housing problems in big cities. Strengthen the construction of the housing market system and housing security system, accelerate the filling of the shortcomings in rental housing, and solve the housing problems of new citizens, young people, especially those engaged in basic public service personnel, etc. The

meeting proposed to expand the supply of affordable rental housing, ensure public rental housing, and focus on developing policy-based rental housing in large cities with net population inflows. Standardize the development of the housing rental market, accelerate the cultivation of professional and large-scale housing rental enterprises, and establish and improve a housing rental management service platform. Rectify the order of the leasing market and standardize market behavior.

"China Housing Development Report (2020-2021)" project team member Jiang Xuemei said in her speech that a traceability supervision and management system for affordable housing should be established, the secondary market for affordable housing should be actively developed, and the effectiveness and utilization efficiency of affordable housing funds should be improved. The government should establish a platform to rent affordable housing as a public rental housing to new citizens in need. The rent is lower than the market price, which not only has the guarantee function, but also can achieve effective allocation of resources.

Jiang Xuemei suggested that the housing problems of new citizens should be solved through market-oriented and guaranteed paths. National compulsory education should be decoupled from real estate certificates, achieve equalization of national compulsory education, promote the construction of a housing system with equal rights to renting and purchasing and both renting and purchasing, and promote the stable development of society.

Kuang Weida, a professor at the School of Business of Renmin University of China, believes that the current housing purchase and sale market in China, including regulatory policies, is relatively perfect and standardized, but the development of the rental market is not very standardized. Therefore, China needs to increase its cultivation, regulation and support in the housing rental market.

"The rental market is of particular significance to middle- and low-income earners, especially new citizens, because middle- and low-income earners may not be able to afford a house, but they can afford a house. More importantly, both high-income earners and low-income earners face the problem of job-housing balance, and solving the job-housing balance also requires the development of the rental market. At present, the development of China's rental market is relatively weak, mainly because the return rate of housing rental institutions is relatively low, which may only be 2% or 3%. This has led many housing rental institutions to choose to invest and finance, launch some rental loans or similar products to obtain a relatively high return rate. Such business risks are relatively high. Therefore, how to regulate the development of the rental market in the future is an important trend in China's housing market." Kuang Weida said.