The State Council introduced a package of measures to ensure the housing needs of new citizens, young people and other groups.

Under the goal of "having a house to live in" for the whole people, affordable rental housing once again ushered in major policy support.

On July 2, the General Office of the State Council issued the Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Affordable Rental Housing (hereinafter referred to as the Opinions), which clarified the basic system and supporting policies of affordable rental housing from five aspects: land support, optimizing administrative examination and approval, financial support, tax reduction and fee reduction, and financial support.

On the same day, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the Notice on Further Improving the Pilot Work of Real Estate Investment Trust Funds (REITs) in Infrastructure (hereinafter referred to as the Notice). The "Notice" clarifies that affordable rental housing will be included in the infrastructure REITs pilot, which will provide assistance for accelerating the development of affordable rental housing from the capital side.

High precision, matching supply and demand

In order to solve the housing difficulties of young people, the Opinions clarify that affordable rental housing mainly solves the housing difficulties of eligible new citizens, young people and other groups, mainly small-sized units with a construction area of not more than 70 square meters, and the rent is lower than that of rental housing in the same location and the same quality market.

"'high accuracy and operability' is a prominent feature of this policy." Zhao Ran, president of ICCRA Housing Leasing Industry Research Institute, said that the Opinions are accurate. On the demand side, the population and demand characteristics of affordable rental housing services are defined, and the corresponding requirements for product design and rent setting are put forward, which fully reflects the determination to protect new citizens and young people.

The imbalance between supply and demand in the leasing market is a long-standing contradiction, and there is no better solution at present. The Opinions pointed out that "matching supply and demand" is the principle to be adhered to in the next step: the urban people's government should combine the supply and demand and quality of existing rental housing, proceed from reality, adopt new construction, renovation, renovation, rental subsidies and treat government idle housing as affordable rental housing to effectively increase supply.

Multi-agent supply and multi-channel guarantee

The policy released this time shows the government's encouragement to multi-channel supply in the market. The contents of the Opinions show that the government gives land, taxation, finance and other policy support to affordable rental housing, gives full play to the role of market mechanism, guides multi-subject investment and multi-channel supply, adheres to the principle of "whoever invests owns it", and supports specialized large-scale housing leasing enterprises to build and operate affordable rental housing.

In this regard, Huang Hui, senior analyst of RealData, said: "With the help of market forces, we can revitalize the market stock, mobilize the enthusiasm of leasing enterprises and increase the supply scale of affordable rental housing. Supporting the participation of housing leasing companies is also conducive to cultivating a mature housing leasing market. "

In terms of land support policies, the Opinions give a package of solutions: we can explore the use of collectively operated construction land to build affordable rental housing; Allow enterprises and institutions to use their own land to build affordable rental housing, change land use, and not pay the land price; The upper limit of supporting land area of industrial park can be increased from 7% to 15%, and the increase is mainly used to build dormitory-type affordable rental housing; Allow idle and inefficient use of commercial offices, hotels, factories, warehouses, scientific research and education and other non-residential stock houses to be converted into affordable rental houses, without changing the nature of land use and paying the land price; The land for affordable rental housing can be supplied by means of transfer, lease or allocation, and the transfer price is allowed to be collected in installments; New ordinary commodity housing projects can be equipped with a certain proportion of affordable rental housing; Encourage the construction of a certain proportion of affordable rental housing in the subway superstructure.

Huang Hui said that this will effectively revitalize all kinds of idle land in enterprises and institutions, revitalize idle non-residential houses and invest in affordable rental houses, and increase the supply of effective rental housing in many ways, which will effectively alleviate the imbalance between occupation and residence.

Zhao Xiuchi, a professor at capital university of economics and business Institute of Urban Economics and Public Administration and vice president and secretary general of Beijing Real Estate Law Society, believes that the above measures are conducive to the establishment of a housing system with both rent and purchase, especially the transformation of existing land and self-built affordable rental housing. I hope this opinion can be implemented.

"Supporting policies is the key." Li, chief researcher of Guangdong Housing Policy Research Center, pointed out that through the government's policy support and encouraging multi-channel supply in the market, these support shows the country's determination to reduce rental prices and increase low-rent housing.

Financial and financial support, strong and practical.

It is worth noting that the support of the Opinions for the construction of affordable rental housing in terms of finance and taxation is a highlight. The central government will subsidize the construction of eligible affordable rental housing, reduce the tax burden and implement the price of civil water, electricity and electricity, further increase financial support, and support banking financial institutions to provide long-term loans to self-sustaining entities of affordable rental housing in a market-oriented manner, and treat them differently when implementing real estate credit management.

A senior practitioner in the investment department of the bank told the reporter that the financial support for affordable rental housing is unprecedented, especially for market operating companies (non-property owners). However, in order to solve the contradiction of "not daring to lend and not lending well", it is necessary to further improve the market environment, supporting measures for leasing, supervision and assessment.

According to Huang Hui's analysis, housing leasing enterprises generally face the problems of narrow financing channels, high financing cost and high tax burden. This will improve the financing environment of affordable rental housing in the future, and the problem of financing difficulties is expected to be effectively alleviated.

"The policy directly hits two major contradictions in the development of the current affordable rental housing market: one is the mismatch between market supply and demand, and the other is the contradiction between the limited market payment ability and the large investment and low income of affordable rental housing enterprises." Zhao Ran added that the notice issued by the National Development and Reform Commission on July 2nd included affordable rental housing in the infrastructure REITs pilot project, which can be regarded as the supporting policy of the State Council's opinion. "This series of policies is really grounded and operable. Strong. "

In fact, the central government and relevant cities have previously introduced various measures to develop affordable housing. Both the Central Economic Work Conference held at the end of last year and this year's government work report clearly stated that it is necessary to promote the construction of affordable rental housing, effectively increase the supply of affordable rental housing, reduce the tax burden of rental housing, and do our utmost to help new citizens and young people alleviate their housing difficulties by increasing land supply, arranging special funds, and concentrating on construction.

Since 2020, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Changsha, Shenyang, Shenzhen, Nanjing and other cities have introduced policies related to affordable rental housing and tried them in practice. "With the implementation of fiscal and taxation policies, the financing methods of affordable rental housing are diversified, and the business burden of enterprises is reduced. In the future, a mature housing rental market with multi-agent supply and multi-channel guarantee will be formed, which can meet the diversified and quality rental needs. All groups can live and work in cities. " Huang Hui said.