(Original title: Hefei once had the highest housing price increase in the world. Now 12 banks have stopped lending to second-hand houses!)

Hefei, Anhui Province, was once the "leader" in the rapid rise of domestic and even global housing prices. In 2016, Hefei's housing prices increased by more than 40%, and it was listed as "the first in the world in terms of housing price growth" by the Hurun Research Institute.

However, in 2018, Hefei’s property market entered a downward trend. In the first half of 2019, Hefei's property market ushered in the "Little Indian Spring", with both volume and price picking up.

But recently, some media reported that among the 18 banks in Hefei, a 20% increase in first-home loan interest rates is the mainstream; and 12 banks have stopped providing second-hand home loans, and some banks have even stopped providing new home loans.

“I am anxious to get a loan to buy a house, but the bank does not accept the order.” Is this true?

Twelve banks in Hefei have stopped lending for second-hand houses

According to CCTV Financial Report, Ms. Cheng, a Hefei citizen, sold a property in her hands in June this year. The mortgage transfer procedures have been completed, and she is waiting for the buyer to get the payment after the loan approval is completed. However, recently, the news that many banks have stopped lending to second-hand houses has made her worried: I signed a contract with the other party, transferred the ownership, and took out a mortgage. Now I'm worried that I won't be able to get a bank loan. When will I get the money? Or I can’t get the loan and what should I do if I default?

In response to Ms. Cheng’s concerns, CCTV financial reporters contacted several banks by phone. Some relevant banks stated that there has been no change in housing loan policies, and the reason for the "loan suspension" was that the banks had insufficient quotas at the end of the month. ?

Hua Xia Bank: The policy issued by the bank (second-hand housing loans) is no longer available.

Staff from the Postal Savings Bank of China: Not available at the moment. We have to wait for notification later. There is no quota at the moment, so we will not accept it.

Hangzhou Bank staff: You have to ask whether the intermediary has cooperation with Hangzhou Bank. If so, we can do it for you. If not, we can’t do it now.

Staff from China Everbright Bank: We are not doing second-hand housing for the time being.

It is understood that there are 12 banks in Hefei that do not provide second-hand housing loans, namely: China Construction Bank, Bank of China, Bank of Hangzhou, Huaxia Bank, China Everbright Bank, Bank of Communications, Bohai Bank, Agricultural Bank of China, China Guangfa Bank, Postal Savings Bank of China, CITIC Bank, and China Merchants Bank.

Among them, Bank of Hangzhou and Huaxia Bank have also stopped new home loans.

Image source: CCTV Finance "China Real Estate News" also reported that the suspension of second-hand housing loans was not due to the introduction of relevant policies, but that some banks had used up their quotas.

At the same time, the interest rates of major banks in Hefei are currently rising across the board, basically maintaining an increase of 20% to 30%. The mortgage interest rate is approximately 5.88% to 6.37%. This interest rate is 0.457% to 0.947% higher than the national average of 5.423%.

Yan Yuejin, research director of the Think Tank Center of E-House Research Institute, said in an interview with China Real Estate News that the suspension of mortgage loans for second-hand houses is a very strong signal. First-hand housing provides loans because banks and some developersThere is a certain degree of cooperation with developers, so banks that still have quotas will not blindly suspend them; however, second-hand housing loan applications are matched by intermediaries, and the influence of intermediaries cannot be compared with developers. Therefore, under the current tightening of mortgage policies, second-hand housing is often more likely to be tightened.

According to CCTV Finance, industry insiders said that the tightening of mortgage policies by various banks has increased the risks of local real estate transactions.

Both volume and price of Hefei’s property market have recovered in the first half of this year

Looking back on 2016, Hefei’s property market was still looking “crazy” at that time. In January 2017, the Global House Price Index released by Hurun Research Institute showed that Hefei’s house prices increased by more than 40%, ranking first in the “global house price increase” in 2016.

Subsequently, regulatory policies continued to deepen, and Hefei’s property market began to cool down. By 2018, phenomena such as special-priced houses, down payment installments, national brokers, and hardcover turned into rough materials also began to emerge one after another. Chaos in the property market also resulted from some cases of non-compliance with market rules and illegal sales. Last year, two "attempted price reductions" of popular projects in Hefei attracted national attention.

Since this year, Hefei has introduced a series of policies specifically targeting various chaos.

For example, on July 30, the official WeChat public account "Hefei Real Estate Bureau" of the Hefei City Housing Security and Real Estate Administration Bureau in Anhui Province announced that Hefei City held a real estate market stabilization work meeting. The meeting proposed that real estate companies that have caused three or more group visits and complaints and failed to effectively deal with them should promptly adopt measures to suspend land supply, suspend pre-sales, and suspend online signings; and strictly control bank loans, strictly control pre-sale funds, and strictly control registered prices.

According to statistics from Xin'an Big Data Research Institute, From January to June, Hefei City (excluding three counties, Chaohu, and Lujiang) had a total of 29,424 online residential transactions, a year-on-year increase of 14.6%; the transaction area was 3.4363 million square meters, a year-on-year increase of 21.7%; the average price was 16,586.3 yuan/square meter, a year-on-year increase of 6.5%. Both volume and price have recovered. Yuan Chengjian, vice president of Zhuge Housing, said in an interview with China Real Estate News, "The suspension of second-hand housing loans will affect many people who are in urgent need, causing them to lose their ability to purchase, and suppressing market activity. Now, people in urgent need who do not have enough cash can only buy new houses, but new house projects are currently mostly in remote suburbs and have insufficient supporting facilities."

Yan Yuejin reminded that if the loan for second-hand houses cannot be processed, it may in turn affect some demand for house replacement, thereby affecting first-hand housing transactions.

Complete changes in pricing methods

How will mortgage interest rates go?

According to statistics from the Economic Daily, since the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China clearly stated that "real estate should not be used as a means of short-term stimulus to the economy," the pace of increases in mortgage interest rates in many hot cities has become faster and more urgent. Under the strict control policies, it is not difficult to judge the direction of housing prices in the second half of the year - it is really difficult for housing prices to rise!

First of all, supervision remains high-pressure. Since the beginning of this year, the central government and various departments have repeatedly reiterated their insistence on housing for living, not for speculation, to prevent ups and downs in the property market, and supervision has always maintained a high-pressure posture. The determination of many places to "attack the real estate market as soon as it appears" has never changed.

Secondly, the impact of rising mortgage interest rates cannot be underestimated. As real estate loan interest rates rise in hot cities, will inevitably increase the cost of home purchase and curb some speculative demand.

Once again, regulatory measures have been upgraded, making real estate financing even more difficult. Financial policies, combined with controlling the scale of development loans from the source and strictly preventing illegal funds from flowing into the property market, will force developers to be cautious in acquiring land and accelerate "destocking."

In addition, just yesterday (August 25) afternoon, the central bank announced a new housing loan interest rate pricing method: starting from October 8, 2019, the interest rate of newly issued commercial personal housing loans will be based on the loan market quotation rate (LPR) of the corresponding period in the last month as the pricing benchmark plus points. The value of points added should comply with national and local housing credit policy requirements, reflect the loan risk profile, and be fixed during the contract period.

The relevant person in charge of the central bank stated: After the pricing benchmark conversion, the interest rate of newly issued personal housing loans nationwide shall not be lower than the LPR of the corresponding period (based on the LPR of more than 5 years on August 20, which is 4.85%); the interest rate of the second personal housing loan shall not be lower than the LPR of the corresponding period plus 60 basis points (based on the LPR of more than 5 years on August 20, which is 5.45%), which is basically equivalent to the current actual lowest interest rate level of personal housing loans in my country. At the same time, branches of the People's Bank of China will guide the self-regulatory mechanisms for market interest rate pricing at the provincial level to promptly determine the lower limit of the local LPR increase point. Compared with before the reform, when households apply for personal housing loans, their interest payments are basically unaffected.

In this regard, Yang Qinqin and Song Yun, senior researchers at Rushi Financial Research Institute, analyzed:

In the long run, mortgage interest rates cannot be lower, and may be higher. In fact, even though the old policy had reference and lower limits for the first and second mortgage interest rates, the current national average mortgage interest rate is much higher than the old benchmark. The latest data in July averaged 5.44% for the first mortgage and 5.76% for the second mortgage, which are 1.11 times and 1.18 times the benchmark respectively. Therefore, under the principle of "housing is for living, not for speculation", the new mortgage interest rate policy has a lower limit but no upper limit, and the interest rate may be higher. After the Politburo meeting on July 30 emphasized that “real estate should not be used as a short-term means of stimulating the economy,” national mortgage interest rates began to rebound and returned to an upward trend. Mortgage interest rates are not within the target range of reform-style “interest rate cuts” and will be isolated. The LPR formation mechanism announced by the central bank last week is a key step in the reform-style "interest rate cut". This LPR reform is mainly to reduce the financing costs of real enterprises. The first quotation of the new LPR dropped by 6BP, but it is mainly to guide the flow of funds to real enterprises. After the reform of mortgage interest rates, mortgage interest rates are isolated and will not change in real time with the benchmark, which is conducive to the stability of the real estate market. Reform-style interest rate cuts are not targeted at the real estate market and will have limited benefits for housing prices.

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