Source: Cailian Press Author: Li Jie
1. To promote stability in the real estate market, high-level cities have started a competition to attract people, and have introduced measures that allow for residency with the purchase of property. 2. Since the beginning of this year, several core second-tier cities have issued policies allowing for the application of residency with the purchase of property, including Suzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Wuhan, Foshan, Hefei, Shenyang, etc.
To promote stability in the real estate market, high-level cities have started a competition to attract people, and have introduced measures that allow for residency with the purchase of property.
Zhongyuan Real Estate data shows that since the beginning of this year, several core second-tier cities have issued policies allowing for the application of residency with the purchase of property, including Suzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Wuhan, Foshan, Hefei, Shenyang, etc. Currently, more than 20 cities have implemented this policy.
In addition, some cities have implemented policies that allow for residency with the rental of property, further increasing their attraction for people and talents.
According to Zhang Dawei, chief analyst of Zhongyuan Real Estate, there are still four first-tier cities, Tianjin, and Hainan that have yet to fully implement the policy of buying property to obtain residency.
"Relaxing residency restrictions is conducive to breaking down barriers to labor mobility, further expanding the demand for urban residents to purchase homes. With the gradual implementation of policies to optimize the property market in core cities, it will promote substantial growth in home purchases from the demand side," said an analyst from Everbright Securities.
Regarding the reasons for the relaxation of residency restrictions in various regions, analysts from China Great Wall Securities stated that since 2012, China has entered a new stage of urbanization. However, in recent years, the growth rate of urbanization has slowed down somewhat, which has had a certain impact on the demand for commercial housing.
With greater pressure from falling housing prices, many cities have begun to promote reforms to the household registration system and relax residency restrictions. This year, this measure has spread to hotspot second-tier cities.
On June 25th, the Suzhou Public Security Bureau issued a notice regarding the implementation of lawful property ownership to obtain residency. The notice specifies that non-Suzhou residents who actually reside within the administrative area of Suzhou and who meet one of the conditions of owning a lawful property or purchasing a newly-built commodity housing in Suzhou can apply to migrate their household registration to the property they own or purchased. The spouse, unmarried children, and parents can apply for household migration as well.
On May 11th, the Nanjing Public Security Bureau issued a notice regarding the implementation of lawful and stable residence to obtain residency. The notice states,"Relax the conditions for obtaining residency. Non-Nanjing residents who own a lawful and stable residence within this city and reside there can directly apply for residency."
In addition, on May 9th, another core second-tier city, Hangzhou, issued a notice on the optimization and adjustment of real estate market regulation policies. Hangzhou mentioned,"Optimize the scoring system for obtaining residency, non-residents who have obtained legal property rights in Hangzhou can apply for residency."
In addition to expanding the scope of personnel eligible for buying property and settling in Shen, Shen also offers residency with the rental of property. Non-Shenyang residents who rent in urban areas of Shenyang can obtain a household registration for themselves and their immediate relatives.
"This round of relaxation of property purchases and residency restrictions is mainly for second-tier cities. At present, major cities are further expanding the demand for purchasing homes by competing for human resources, thereby promoting the consumption of housing stock from the demand side," said Zhang Hongwei, founder of Jingjian Consulting.
"Current city competition ultimately boils down to population and talent competition. The continuous import of population and talent will strengthen urban economic vitality, make cities more competitive and allowing for the purchase of property to obtain residency, supporting talent purchases of homes and combining housing policies with population and talent policies, which is conducive to promoting population and talent inflows and will stimulate home purchase demand to a certain extent," said an analyst from CSI.
Zhang Bo, director of the Anjuke Research Institute, believes that except for a few super-large cities, household registration restrictions will continue to exist, and it is expected that the household registration of most cities will be relaxed in the future, and the relaxation of household registration is a trend.
"In the short term, as long as the real estate market is active, there will be no new policies. But once the market declines again, the degree of easing restrictions on purchases and residency will be even greater," said Zhang Dawei.
According to a research report by CSI, it is expected that by the second half of 2024, the national real estate market will still face adjustment pressure, and the new housing market may still be in the stage of bottoming out. In an optimistic scenario, the sales area of new commodity housing in the second half of this year will be basically the same as that of the same period last year, with a year-on-year decrease of about 10%; in a neutral scenario, the sales area of new commodity housing for the whole year is expected to decrease by about 14.9% year-on-year; in a pessimistic scenario, the decrease for the whole year is about 18%.
Editor/Lambor