■ The bubble may spread to Beijing and Suzhou.
At the beginning of 2005, the staff of the research department of China International Capital Corporation (hereinafter referred to as CICC) collected commercial information of various real estates in nearly 20 cities across the country, including prices, mortgage loans and lease data, and then published the research report "Buying a house is worse than renting a house" in March. The report points out: "In view of the fact that when the Hong Kong real estate price bubble burst in197, the capital cost and monthly payment of house purchase were 2.2 times and 2 times of the rent respectively, while the capital cost and monthly payment of house purchase in the Mainland were 1. 1 and 1.3 times of the rent respectively, the overall real estate price has begun to bubble, especially including the Yangtze River Delta.
Re-inspection on the eve of the Spring Festival in 2006 shows that the cost/rent ratio of the re-inspected 167 building in 12 cities has almost all increased in the past year, with an average increase of 1 1%, and the ratio in more cities has exceeded 1 (see the right figure). The increase of this index is mainly because the increase of house price is still greater than the increase of rent, which has little to do with the increase of mortgage interest rate in June 2006 of 65438+ 10/. "Compared with 2005, it is better to rent a house in 2006."
Statistics show that in 2005, in some areas of the Yangtze River Delta, where the cost of housing funds was much higher than the rent, the price increase slowed down obviously (such as Hangzhou), and even the price fell (such as Shanghai), indicating that the real estate control policy has achieved certain results, and the housing price bubbles in these cities are being gradually squeezed out. However, the decline in housing prices has caused many speculators/investors who originally intended to arbitrage in selling houses to sell them as rents, which has led to a greater decline in rents and further increased the cost/rent ratio of housing funds. In the case that the expectation of rising house prices is obviously weakened, more people will choose to rent rather than buy a house. This indicates that the increase in house prices will be further reduced, and there is even the possibility of further decline in house prices.
In the cities where the cost/rent ratio of house purchase funds was obviously less than 1 last year, this ratio rose sharply within one year. For example, in Beijing, Chengdu and other places, this ratio has exceeded1; Suzhou, Shenyang and Shenzhen are even closer to 1, which shows that the real estate "bubble" is spreading to these areas. In 2005, house prices in Beijing and Suzhou increased greatly, but rents decreased. The cost of housing capital and rent remain basically unchanged, and the price increase will definitely slow down in the future. In Guangzhou and Shenzhen in 2005, although house prices rose sharply and rents also rose sharply, the capital cost of buying a house at present is still lower than rents, and there is still room for further increase in house prices in the future.
■ Renting a house will be more difficult.
At present, the average monthly rent/rent ratio in 12 cities is 1.3 times (table 1), which is basically the same as that in 2005. Dr. Ha Ji Ming, chief economist of CICC, believes that although the interest rate increase in early 2006 increased the debt repayment burden, the increase in the down payment ratio in March last year reduced the monthly payment burden of subsequent buyers. Due to the small increase in interest rates, the increase in down payment ratio has a greater impact on monthly payments than interest rates. Other things being equal, the rent/supply ratio will drop sharply next month. The reason why the monthly supply/rent ratio is basically the same this year is because the price increase is greater than the rent. The fact that the monthly mortgage/rent ratio has not deteriorated is related to the policy announced by the central bank on March 17, 2005 to cancel the preferential mortgage interest rate and increase the down payment ratio, because this policy has increased the cost of real estate speculation.
Ha Ji Ming pointed out that for those who have bought a house in early 2005, their monthly mortgage burden has nothing to do with the change of house price or down payment ratio, while the increase of interest rate increases the expenditure on debt service, and increases the monthly mortgage/rent ratio in cities where rents have decreased or slightly increased. If this ratio rises further, speculators/investors constrained by cash flow will find it difficult to rent a house and have to sell it. Among them, the monthly payments of Hangzhou, Shanghai and Nanjing are 2, 1.8 and 1.6 times of the rent, respectively, ranking first among the reviewed 12 cities, while the situation in Hangzhou is similar to that on the eve of the bursting of the real estate price bubble in Hong Kong in 1997. The monthly payment/rent ratio in Beijing and Suzhou increased rapidly, from 0.82 times last year to 1.09 times and 1.07 times this year, respectively. This is mainly because house prices are rising significantly faster than rents. In contrast, due to the large increase in rents, the monthly rent/supply ratio in Guangzhou and Shenzhen has remained at around 1 times for a year.
■ The foam structure is becoming more and more "flat"
In fact, some market participants still have some doubts about the conclusion and analysis process that buying a house is not as good as renting a house. In this regard, Ha Ji Ming said that the capital cost of buying a house refers to the interest cost of buying a house, including the interest expense of mortgage loans and the opportunity cost of buying a house relative to renting a house, that is, the loss of deposit interest of down payment; The rental cost (or income) is the rent. Two factors are not considered in the cost/rent ratio of housing funds. That is, it does not include the purchase price and future sale price of the house, but assumes that they are equal, that is, it assumes that the depreciation rate of the house is equal to the price increase rate of similar new houses. If people expect the house to increase in value in the future, that is, the depreciation rate of the house is lower than the future price increase rate of similar new houses, even if the interest cost of buying a house is higher than the rental income, people may still choose to buy a house in a certain period of time to promote the price increase. At the same time, it does not consider the cash flow constraints of investors: even if people expect the house to appreciate, once the rental income is not enough to support the repayment of the mortgage (that is, the monthly payment) and the other income sources of the owners are limited, they may choose to sell the house, which will exert downward pressure on the house price.
But even so, it is still an effective indicator to diagnose the health of the real estate market. If the capital cost of buying a house is already higher than the rent, and people still choose to buy a house because of the expectation of house appreciation, then the increase of house price will be higher than the increase of rent, further raising the capital cost/rent ratio of buying a house. However, this expectation of value-added cannot be sustained for a long time, and it is also intolerable by society, because it requires an increasing increase in house prices, or a "divergent" increase in house prices, which is theoretically impossible and there is no precedent in the world.
In the ratio of monthly payment to rent, even if the cost of housing funds is lower than the rent, housing rental can also make money, but the loan to buy a house not only has to pay interest but also the principal. Once the rent falls, some investors will be unable to bear the burden of repaying the principal and interest (that is, monthly payment), that is, they will be restricted by cash flow. Therefore, we should consider the monthly payment/rent ratio. Compared with the above-mentioned housing capital cost, the monthly payment includes the monthly payment of mortgage loan principal, but does not include the opportunity cost part of the housing capital cost. If investors have no other source of income and only rely on rental housing to support the monthly payment, then when the rent falls below the monthly payment, they will make ends meet, resulting in cash flow problems and have to sell.
From this point of view, in some cities (such as Hangzhou and Shanghai) where the housing price bubble has been serious at the beginning of 2005, the ratio of capital cost to rent and the ratio of monthly rent to supply continue to rise, and buying a house will be worse than renting a house. In 2006, except for the Yangtze River Delta region represented by Shanghai, real estate prices will continue to rise. The housing capital cost/rent ratio and the monthly supply/rent ratio will continue to climb. House prices in Shanghai will continue to fall, while those in Beijing and the Pearl River Delta will continue to rise.
Gao Huiqing, director of the Strategic Planning Division of the Development Research Department of the National Information Center, also believes that the housing market reflects not only effective demand, but also some speculative demand, while the leasing market focuses on effective demand. Compared with the two, the remaining part is usually considered as bubble demand, so this ratio is a good indicator to measure the market. However, he also pointed out that renting and buying houses are not the same group, and data analysis can only reflect some market trends.
As far as the whole national real estate market is concerned, it can be said that there are good and bad. On the one hand, the peak value of the bubble dropped significantly, which is a very critical point; On the other hand, the area affected by the bubble has expanded, some places may have increased bubbles, and some places may have produced new bubbles. In a sense, the coexistence of these two trends has led to the existence of a new bubble structure, that is, from excessive concentration, sharp contradiction to flat spread. Compared with the past, this seems to be a stable and good choice.