What does a major change in supply and demand in the real estate market mean?

In the first half of this year, the real estate market showed some new features.

The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development introduced the data on commercial housing net signatures, which showed that in the first half of the year, the volume of transactions of new and second-hand houses was 1.03 billion square meters, an increase of 23.4 per cent year-on-year, and an increase of 1.6 per cent compared with the average of the same period in the past three years. This shows that the overall transaction volume of new and second-hand houses is stable. As the real estate market entered the "inventory era", the transaction structure changed accordingly, and the proportion of second-hand housing transactions in the volume of transactions increased.

From the completion point of view, in the first half of the year, the national housing completion area of 340 million square meters, a year-on-year increase of 19.0%, an increase of 4.3 percentage points over the first quarter. The significant growth in the completed area was due to the smooth progress in the delivery of buildings, leading to accelerated progress in the completion of real estate development projects.

From the point of view of pending sales, the area of commercial real estate for sale has stabilized at around 640 million square meters since the beginning of this year, and the supply and demand situation is relatively stable. From the price point of view, in June, the 70 large and medium-sized cities have risen and fallen in home prices, of which the sales price of newly built commercial residential properties rose year-on-year in 27 cities, an increase of 1 over May.

Under the complicated domestic and international economic environment, the online transaction volume of new and second-hand houses nationwide still maintained growth in the first half of the year, and the house prices in 70 large and medium-sized cities did not fall universally, and the price fluctuations were within a reasonable range. Overall, combined with the fact that the per capita housing floor area of China's urban residents has reached 41 square meters in 2021, the national population has decreased by 850,000 people and the urbanization rate of the resident population has reached 65.22% in 2022, as well as factors such as the sluggish international economic recovery and the lack of domestic demand, the real estate market has undergone significant changes in the relationship between supply and demand. However, compared with some other industries, real estate still shows strong resilience.

The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, into the second quarter, the market volume growth has slowed down, which is mainly due to the real estate market by the macro-environmental impact of the greater pressure on the employment of residents, income expectations weakened, the ability and willingness to buy a house declined, the purchase of housing as a bulk consumption recovery is relatively lagging behind. In the second half of the year, as the macro-economy further picks up to improve, residents' housing consumption and real estate enterprises' willingness to invest will also be gradually repaired.

China's new commodity housing market from the seller's market to the buyer's market. Entering the buyer's market under the excessive supply stage, the government should adhere to the "housing without speculation" positioning on the premise of gradually optimizing and adjusting the demand management policy. At the same time, it can also adopt fiscal, tax and financial policies to encourage residents to improve their housing conditions in order to increase market demand, and optimize the timing, structure and spatial distribution of new housing supply through land supply and other channels, in order to promote a new equilibrium between supply and demand in the real estate market.