Why should we curb the excessive rise in housing prices?

This problem must first talk about the harm of excessive housing price rise.

The regulation and control of the real estate market should adhere to the priority of "stability" and take improving supply and stabilizing demand as the top priority of policy regulation, which should not only promote the stable development of the market, but also promote the return of housing prices to a reasonable level.

Since the beginning of this year, the real estate market in China has risen against the trend, and the volume and price have once again become the focus of attention from all walks of life.

The volume and price of the property market have risen, and the market demand has been released.

Since the beginning of this year, the volume and price of China real estate market have risen, and the market demand has been released. In the first eight months, the cumulative sales area of commercial housing in China was 494 million square meters, up 42.85% year-on-year, down nearly 15 percentage point compared with the same period in 2008. Sales have increased even faster. In the first eight months, the total sales of commercial housing reached 2,346.47 billion yuan, up 69.86% year-on-year, down nearly 13 percentage point compared with the same period in 2008.

While the volume of transactions has increased substantially, the year-on-year increase in house prices has turned from negative to positive, with positive growth for six consecutive months. In August, the sales price of houses in 70 large and medium-sized cities nationwide rose by 2.0% year-on-year, which was 1 percentage point higher than that in July, and it was the second consecutive month since the beginning of the year. The chain increased by 0.8%, and the chain increased for six consecutive months.

Policy factors are the fundamental reason for the excessive rise in housing prices.

The loose credit policy is the direct cause.

On the supply side, the moderately loose monetary policy and the expansion of credit provide sufficient funds for developers, alleviating the shortage of funds for developers, and the pressure of discount promotion for developers in the early stage has disappeared; On the demand side, the reduction of deposit and loan interest rates and the reduction of the down payment ratio of house purchases have simultaneously amplified the demand for self-occupation and investment speculation. When the elasticity of supply is small or even reduced, the centralized release of demand will inevitably lead to a sharp rise in house prices.

Inflation expectation is an indirect cause.

Worried that global and domestic banks have injected a lot of liquidity into the market, and the situation that the international and domestic economies have bottomed out is gradually becoming clear, investors' expectations for future inflation are getting stronger and stronger. With the slow development of financial market and limited investment channels, buying a house has become the first choice for the wealthy in China to preserve and increase their assets. If in the first quarter of this year, the market demand was still dominated by self-occupation and improved demand, then in the second quarter, investment speculative demand became the main force to promote housing prices. The dynamic fine-tuning of monetary policy in the third quarter (such as tightening the second set of loans) made the speculative demand for investment ebb again, which led to a slowdown in trading volume again.

Credit funds illegally entered the property market and the stock market.

According to estimates, the ratio of new loans to GDP in the first half of this year was as high as 0.53, while in previous years this ratio has been stable at 0. 1~0.2. In the first half of the year, GDP increased by 7. 1%, the lowest growth rate since 1992. At present, the low level of economic growth does not need and cannot absorb so much credit funds, which will inevitably lead to some credit funds flowing into the asset market, thus further pushing up asset prices such as house prices and stock prices.

The overall level of housing prices in China is obviously high.

Judging from the cycle of the real estate industry, this round of market adjustment in 2008 is not completely inadequate.

In the four stages of the macroeconomic boom cycle (depression, recovery, prosperity and recession), there are four combinations of low growth, low prices, high growth, low prices, high growth, high prices, low growth and high prices in turn. In fact, the real estate industry has a similar cyclical development law: generally speaking, the adjustment of the real estate market is always guided by the decline in transaction volume, but at this time, house prices are still firm, and there is a so-called stage of falling volume and price; Then the volume and price fall together, that is, the stage when the volume and price fall together; With the price falling, the effective demand began to increase, and the trading volume began to pick up, entering the stage of rising volume and price; Finally, with the improvement of the economy, the volume of transactions continues to increase, speculative demand is active, and then evolved into a stage of rising volume and price. The time needed to develop from one stage to another mainly depends on the stage of real estate development and the change of external environment.

According to the industry development cycle, we can divide the development process of China real estate since 2000 into three stages:

The first stage (2000~2002): the stage of falling volume and price. According to the data in table 1, at present, the national house price has risen slightly, and the average annual increase of the house sales price index is 2.0% in the past three years. Due to the small price increase, a large amount of effective demand accumulated before the housing system reform has been released in a centralized way, and the market turnover at this stage has also increased significantly (with an average annual growth rate of more than 20%).

The second stage (2003~2007): the stage of rising volume and price. Since 2003, influenced by many factors, such as the rising economic cycle and the approaching Beijing Olympic Games, the sales volume of housing in China has continued to increase (with an average annual increase of about 24%). At the same time, China's housing prices have also entered a rapid upward channel, and the housing sales price index has increased by more than 7% annually. This stage lasts a long time, and there is an objective need for adjustment in the market.

The third stage (2008): the stage of falling volume and price. With the continuous activity of the market and the increase of speculative activities, the national housing prices are constantly rising, but the rising high housing prices are beyond the affordability of most buyers, forcing most buyers to withdraw from the market. Coupled with the suppression of national macro-control and the impact of the global financial crisis, the market turnover has dropped sharply at this stage. In 2008, the turnover decreased by nearly 20%, which was the first year since the housing reform.

But this period only lasted less than 1 year. In 2009, influenced by the national economic stimulus policy, especially the monetary policy, the real estate market ended its adjustment ahead of schedule and returned to the boom cycle of rising volume and price. However, according to the law of industry development and international (such as Japan) experience, the real estate adjustment cycle should be at least three years, and the adjustment duration in 2008 is less than 1 year. Therefore, this round of real estate market adjustment is incomplete and insufficient. Due to the previous price increase, buyers' wait-and-see atmosphere reappeared, and the real estate transaction volume in some cities began to shrink since August, indicating that China's real estate market is at a critical stage of falling from volume to price.

Excessive housing prices are not conducive to the healthy development of the industry.

Ordinary people think that the current housing price is unbearable, but some developers, some officials and some scholars think that the housing price is actually not high, and there are evidences such as urbanization, industrialization and upgrading of consumption structure. Here, the author measures the overall level of China's housing prices through three methods: the ratio of housing prices to income, the ratio of housing prices to rents and the absolute price method.

First, the ratio of house price to income is much higher than the reasonable level. When housing is used to meet the demand of self-occupation, it is the actual purchasing power of residents that determines the house price, which is usually expressed by the ratio of house price to income. After investigating the capital cities of more than 50 countries, UN-HABITAT believes that the reasonable price of a house should be 2-3 times the annual income of residents. More than six times, most people can't afford it, and there is a problem in the market. However, as shown in Table 2, in 2008, the ratio of house price to income in China was as high as 8∶ 1. The ratio of house price to income in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Hainan and Tianjin all exceeds10:1,and the core area of Beijing is as high as 22:1,which is significantly higher than that in international cities such as Tokyo, London and Vancouver.

Second, the price-rent ratio is increasing year by year, and the market bubble and risk are simultaneously amplified. When housing is used as investment demand, an important factor determining housing price is housing rent, and the price-rent ratio is usually used to express the level of housing price internationally. Limited by the availability of data, here we use the ratio of the commercial housing sales price index and the rental price index published by the National Bureau of Statistics to indicate the relative change of housing prices and rental prices: if the ratio is greater than 1, it means that the prices and rents are relatively high, and speculative elements and market bubbles are increasing; Conversely, if the ratio is less than 1, it means that prices and rents are relatively low, and speculative components and bubbles in the market are decreasing. In recent years, the price-rent ratio of China's real estate market has been increasing, from 1.03 in 2003 to 1.04 from 2004 to 2008. Although it declined in the first half of 2009 (1.0 1), it was still above the critical value of 1. It shows that there are more and more speculative elements and bubbles in the real estate market in China with the rise of housing prices.

Third, in absolute terms, the housing prices in China's first tier cities have approached or even surpassed those in developed countries. In 2008, in Chicago, USA, the median price of a 200-square-meter single-family villa was $264,000, and the unit price was about 9,240 yuan/square meter. The price of an 80-square-meter apartment building with parking space in Tokyo, Japan is about 30 million yen, equivalent to RMB 6,543,800+0.92 million, or about 24,000 yuan per square meter. In 2009, the selling price of more than 70% buildings within the Fourth Ring Road in Beijing reached 20,000 yuan/square meter. Considering the purchasing power parity, China's housing has only 70 years of land use rights. Considering that the per capita income of the United States and Japan is several times or even dozens times higher than that of China, the housing prices of first-tier cities like Beijing and Shanghai in China have actually far exceeded those of developed countries.

Therefore, no matter from the industry development cycle or the three major indicators to measure housing prices, the overall level of housing prices in China is obviously high.

The influence of high housing prices on economic development

From the perspective of the national economy and the welfare promotion of members of the whole society, the excessive rise in housing prices does more harm than good, and its harm is mainly reflected in the following three aspects.

Positive feedback effect intensifies macroeconomic fluctuations.

Excessive rise in housing prices has a wealth effect. That is, with the rise of housing prices, the market value of mortgage assets will increase, which will drive the increase of residents' consumption and economic growth, that is, a positive feedback mechanism will be formed between housing prices and wealth. From the perspective of economic fluctuation, during the period of economic expansion, rising house prices will further push up economic growth; In the period of economic contraction, falling house prices will further slow down economic growth.

On the supply side, when housing prices rise, developers and banks expect prices to continue to rise, which leads to an increase in credit and investment development; On the demand side, the rise in housing prices has led to an increase in investment demand. In the case of short-term supply inelastic, the sharp increase in demand will inevitably lead to a rapid rise in housing prices. Due to the high degree of industrial correlation, an active real estate market will promote the rapid development of related industries such as construction, metallurgy, building materials, transportation and finance, thus accelerating economic growth; Similarly, during the economic depression, it will accelerate the economic decline.

The crowding-out effect restricts the expansion of residents' consumption.

Due to the rapid rise in housing prices, the down payment and monthly payment for housing purchases have been increasing in recent years, and the proportion of monthly payment and rental expenses in the total consumption expenditure of residents has also been increasing. The increase of housing expenditure and the increase of its proportion have crowded out the expenditure of buyers in other aspects of life and development, which has seriously restricted the continuous expansion of household consumption. Especially in the context of the current international financial crisis, the rapid rise in housing prices has squeezed residents' consumption and distorted the allocation of social resources, which has become a stumbling block to expanding consumption and ensuring growth.

The redistribution effect widens the income gap of residents.

Housing is not only an ordinary commodity, but also an investment product. Rising house prices will have different effects on the wealth stock of different families. For families without housing, rising house prices have increased the difficulty of renting and buying a house, making the hope of these people realizing their dream of buying a house more and more slim; For families with their own houses, rising house prices will increase mortgage consumption; For families who own houses and invest in them, rising house prices can not only get rental income, but also get more mortgage loans, which is the biggest beneficiary of rising house prices. Generally speaking, the excessive rise in housing prices will further widen the income gap.

People-oriented, Promoting the Healthy Development of Real Estate Market

The rapid rise in housing prices is not conducive to the development of the real estate industry itself, to the stability of economy and finance, and to the goal of building a harmonious socialist society. Therefore, the regulation of the real estate market should adhere to the priority of "stability" and take improving supply and stabilizing demand as the top priority of policy regulation, which will not only promote the stable development of the market, but also promote the return of housing prices to a reasonable level.

Adhere to the people-oriented principle and promote the healthy and stable development of the real estate market

Living in peace is the foundation of people's livelihood. In recent years, the rise of housing prices in China has far exceeded the growth of residents' income, so the real estate development based on the real needs of ordinary people is inevitably unsustainable. The real estate policy should be guided by Scientific Outlook on Development and people-oriented. Starting from the height of building a harmonious socialist society, we will do everything possible to meet the people's demand for self-occupation, curb investment demand, severely curb speculative demand, and promote the healthy and stable development of the real estate market.

Fine-tune the dynamic monetary policy and strictly implement the second home loan policy.

In view of the problem of excessive structural demand in China's housing market, practical and effective measures should be taken to curb unreasonable demand. Financial supervision departments should urge commercial banks to strictly implement the mortgage down payment ratio policy; Strictly restrict the illegal entry of credit funds into the real estate market, and the growth of housing credit must match the economic growth and the repayment ability of borrowers. When the economy stabilizes and rebounds and prices rise further, interest rates will be raised in due course. Drawing on international experience, we will impose certain policy restrictions on non-local property buyers (including overseas and non-local), especially those who purchase multiple houses. Strengthen the supervision of foreign capital flowing into the real estate market.

Improve the supply structure and continue to increase the construction of affordable housing.

Adhere to the two-legged walk of the government and the market, and clarify and strengthen the responsibilities and obligations of the government in safeguarding residents' basic housing. In recent years, although governments at all levels have accelerated the pace of affordable housing construction, from the perspective of the proportion of affordable housing in the total housing supply and meeting the housing needs of low-and middle-income families, the pace of affordable housing construction in China is still too slow, and further efforts are needed to increase the effective supply of the market. It is necessary to speed up the study and introduction of the property tax policy and curb the speculative demand for investment.

Establish and improve the real estate market information system

Strengthen market monitoring. Standardized market and open and transparent information will help market participants to form reasonable expectations and avoid blind investment and consumption. It is suggested that all relevant departments should strengthen the collection, collation and sharing of real estate market operation data. Establish a real estate risk early warning system to provide open, transparent and authoritative dynamic information. (