① On April 18, the country's first urban village renovation project housing tickets were officially distributed to villagers at the launch event for the first urban village renovation project in Guangzhou Development Zone and Huangpu District. ② Experts believe that in the short term, the key to whether housing tickets can be promoted on a large scale is whether residents accept it, and also depends on the abundance of housing stock, price reduction, tax benefits, etc.
Financial Services Association, April 18 (Reporter Li Jie) Guangzhou has launched the first round of “housing ticket resettlement” in urban villages.
On April 18, the country's first urban village renovation project housing tickets were officially distributed to villagers at the launch event for the first urban village renovation project in Guangzhou Development Zone and Huangpu District. The housing ticket placement pilot will proceed in an orderly manner in the renovation project of five villages and seven urban villages in Huangpu District.
According to reports, this policy is a key step in Guangzhou's implementation of old reforms. The aim is to promote the transformation of urban villages through housing ticket placement methods.
“Huangpu District has the largest amount of old renovation in Guangzhou. Huangpu District is also a pioneer in exploring the old renovation model and the reform of the old business environment. In the past, it has achieved many breakthroughs in the old renovation process, compensation and resettlement, etc. There is also a lot of innovation in the housing policy formulated by Huangpu District this time.” Li Yujia, chief researcher at the Housing Policy Research Center of the Guangdong Urban Planning Institute, said.
On April 12, the “Implementation Rules on Housing Ticket Placement for the Urban Village Renovation Project in Huangpu District, Guangzhou City, Guangzhou Development Zone” was officially issued. It was the first in Guangzhou to introduce a supporting policy for housing ticket placement for district-level urban village renovation. It is considered a landmark in coordinating issues such as speeding up villagers' relocation and resettlement and relieving financial pressure on enterprises.
According to the rules, a housing voucher refers to a certificate issued by a unit designated by the district government to purchase commercial housing (including residential, non-residential, and government-owned properties) at a specific time, region, and scope when implementing urban village renovation, after quantifying the evicted person's housing resettlement compensation rights in currency.
“There are three major highlights of this housing voucher policy. One is to provide multiple options for villagers' resettlement, the second is to inject vitality into the real estate market, and the third is to make room for guaranteed housing construction and industrial development.” Hou Ben, director of the Guangzhou Development Zone Urban Renewal Bureau, said.
The “Rules” make it clear that room tickets will first be implemented in a pilot project approved by the Huangpu District Government. The room ticket amount includes basic compensation and policy incentives of no more than 5%. Among them, the basic compensation amount refers to the Huangpu District collective land expropriation monetary compensation and resettlement standards, and must not exceed the price of the housing demolition and resettlement compensation agreement originally signed.
In addition, Huangpu District will set up a “housing supermarket”, and priority will be given to housing provided by the renovation agency that carries out housing ticket placement in urban villages to be included in the “housing supermarket”. For house ticket holders, if the face value of the house ticket is insufficient to pay for the purchase of the house, it can be covered by a loan.
Currently, the first phase of this resettlement includes three commercial properties: Knowledge City • Yuechen 1, Knowledge City Investment Jiada • Mountain and Villa, and Dragon Lion • Jinglong House. At the same time, the relevant departments are also connecting with the listings of a number of high-quality companies. Next, they will further expand the housing supermarket reserve program.
“When entering a new housing project in a real estate supermarket, the price must be lower than the price of a new home project of the same type sold nearby. It is anticipated that regional and municipal state-owned enterprises and CITI, which undertook the task of upgrading the old ones, are selling new houses, and these projects may be included in housing supermarkets.” Li Yujia said.
So what is the driving effect of housing ticket placement measures for urban village renovation in Huangpu, Guangzhou, on the property market?
Analysts believe that the main advantage of housing ticket resettlement is to reduce the scale of relocation and resettlement, reduce the upfront investment costs (relocation costs and relocation costs) of old reform entities; it is also beneficial to absorb the newly built commercial housing in the hands of old renovation investors and return capital to promote investment in other projects.
According to reports, the rules for using the Huangpu Urban Village housing tickets this time are quite flexible. First, it is quite broad. You can either buy a commercial house or a parking space for yourself or your immediate family; second, it is not included in the purchase restrictions; third, it can be transferred; fourth, the original house ticket user also has tax benefits; and fifth, the house ticket can be transferred once, and the unused portion can apply for cash compensation after it expires.
“The purpose of policy incentives plus price concessions is to encourage evicted people to choose housing ticket placement.” Li Yujia believes that in the short term, the key to whether housing tickets can be promoted on a large scale is whether residents accept it, and also depends on the abundance of housing warehouses, the extent of price reductions, and the size of tax incentives.
According to monitoring data from the China Index Research Institute, more than 50 cities have introduced housing ticket placement policies since 2023, including cities such as Zhengzhou, Nanjing, Nanchang, Kunming, Guiyang, Xiamen, Wuxi, and Wenzhou.
CICC Securities analysts believe that the optimization of the housing voucher system can increase the proportion of residents adopting monetized compensation, make monetary compensation more fully used for the purpose of buying a home, and inject as much liquidity into the market as possible.
“Housing ticket-related measures have been accelerated since they were introduced in May 2023, but they have yet to have a general effect. We think this is related to the fact that the overall market is still climbing. With the acceleration of the urban village renovation and urban renewal process in 2024, and the likely acceleration of implementation of relevant financial resources, we believe the potential effects of the housing ticket policy are still worth observing.” According to CICC analysis.