▲ Notice on stabilizing the price warning of Enshi real estate market through the Internet.
On June 10, a notice entitled "Early Warning on Stabilizing Enshi Real Estate Market Price" was circulated on the Internet. This "red-headed document" issued by Enshi City Real Estate Association in Enshi Prefecture, Hubei Province, which is mainly distributed to real estate enterprises in Enshi City, shows that in view of the cliff-like decline in housing prices strongly reflected by the society, the association has investigated and verified some real estates, and listed ten main performances of price reduction and four corresponding guiding and corrective measures.
This "notice" explains in more detail the phenomenon of the property market that needs early warning. For example, some properties are put on record at high prices and opened at low prices, some attract customers at low prices, and some remaining properties are sold at reduced prices. Except for a few phenomena such as reducing the design height, the rest are almost all aimed at reducing prices. The use of red-headed documents to limit the decline in housing prices has caused a lot of controversy.
It should be pointed out that the real estate association is an industry association, not a government functional department. The red-headed documents are different in nature, but they are equally binding on real estate enterprises. Enshi Housing Society responded that it called for self-discipline, but there is still a big gap between this rhetoric and the harsh wording in the document that requires enterprises to rectify, at least there is suspicion of overexertion.
At the working meeting of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development at the end of last year, it was made clear that the regulation in 20 19 should be aimed at "stabilizing land prices, stabilizing housing prices and stabilizing expectations" to ensure that the property market does not blindly rise or fall sharply. As a bridge between real estate enterprises and the government, the real estate association promptly warns of the cliff-like decline in housing prices to avoid disputes over price reduction and rights protection caused by excessive market fluctuations. The original intention is understandable.
However, we must also see that to limit the decline in housing prices, we must also avoid excessive intervention and disrupt market signals. In fact, in addition to the "three stable" red line, an important keyword in the regulation of the property market this year is "one city, one policy". "One city, one policy" means that no matter whether the house price is stable or not, it does not mean that the house price cannot be lowered anywhere. It is out of respect for the laws of the market that local governments should adjust measures to local conditions and give them the autonomy to regulate and relieve pressure according to the actual property market environment.
In the documents issued by Enshi Real Estate Association, some warned price reduction phenomena are far from falling off a cliff. For example, Article 3 mentions "not acting according to the market price rules", but the actual year-on-year price reduction is only 200-500 yuan/m2. Under this premise, it is inevitable to issue a document to limit the price reduction, which is a bit too sensitive, which is not conducive to the withdrawal of funds from housing enterprises, which is a loss for housing enterprises, and also has the potential risk of increasing the pressure on the property market and the break of the capital chain of housing enterprises.
The health of the property market needs a sense of urgency to guard against "ups and downs", but in any case, market regulation should strictly abide by market boundaries, act according to law, avoid getting involved too deeply, and send a wrong signal from the government or industry associations at the bottom of the house price.
From the perspective of the whole industry, the central government emphasizes the regulation principle of "one city, one policy" because the property market is gradually divided and the era of general inflation is gone forever. For some small and medium-sized cities with a small population, the house prices that were pushed up in the past because some local government industries put too much emphasis on real estate investment or speculative fund speculation will be gradually squeezed out sooner or later, and the price reduction is inevitable.
In view of this, the control of housing prices in various places is more determined, and it is necessary to take action at that time, but it is not appropriate to intervene excessively. What needs to be remembered is that the requirement of stabilizing housing prices cannot be narrowly understood as having to cover housing prices.
□ Xiong Zhi (media person)