□ The statistical department will not include the price of houses for sale into the statistical scope. At the same time, in the calculation of the price index, different types of housing have different weights. The price changes of housing types with heavy weights will have a greater impact on the index results

□ To accurately and comprehensively understand the changes in the real estate market, we can use comprehensive analysis based on the characteristics of different indicators. We must not understand the indicators one-sidedly or even misinterpret the data

Every month, the National Bureau of Statistics routinely releases the sales price changes of commercial housing in 70 large and medium-sized cities. These data provide an important reference for studying and judging the domestic real estate market situation. However, for some time, the issue of "structural distortion" of housing price data in 70 cities has attracted a lot of attention.

Is the housing price data for 70 cities released by the National Bureau of Statistics "distorted"?

In fact, the housing price data released by the National Bureau of Statistics every month is accurately called the "residential sales price index", which is a relative number used to reflect the overall change trend and range of housing sales prices. With this index, the macroeconomic management department can better conduct analysis and research, determine the rise and fall of local real estate prices, and take timely control measures; all sectors of society can also have a "knowledge" of the rise and fall of real estate prices. Of course, it can also be used to reduce relevant indicators in national economic accounting.

So, how is the data calculated? First of all, the basic data of the "Residential Sales Price Index" was collected by a survey team directly under the National Bureau of Statistics in 70 large and medium-sized cities. These 70 cities are municipalities directly under the Central Government, provincial capitals, capital cities of autonomous regions (excluding Lhasa), cities under separate state planning (a total of 35 cities), and 35 other cities. The scope of the survey is municipal districts in 70 large and medium-sized cities, excluding counties.

There are voices questioning that the housing price data for 70 cities released by the National Bureau of Statistics cannot reflect the overall changes in the property market.

In fact, there is something special about choosing these 70 cities. Municipalities and provincial capitals such as Beijing and Shanghai, as well as cities under separate state planning such as Qingdao and Ningbo, play an important role in the national economy and are naturally selected. In addition, the selection of the other 35 cities also follows certain rules. For example, Jiangsu Province also selected Wuxi, Yangzhou, and Xuzhou as samples, and Guangdong Province selected Huizhou, Zhanjiang, and Shaoguan as samples. Although Suzhou and Dongguan are both economically strong cities, on the one hand they are not provincial capitals or cities under separate state planning, and on the other hand they are relatively close to the two first-tier cities of Shanghai and Shenzhen. From a statistical point of view, the samples cannot be too concentrated in the same area, so they were not selected.

With the development of statistical undertakings, we also expect the statistics department to further expand the survey scope of the residential sales price index to include more cities, providing more data reference for a comprehensive understanding of changes in the national real estate market.

When collecting data, the statistics department divides residential buildings into new residential buildings and second-hand residential buildings. At the same time, the residential area is also divided into three basic categories: 90 square meters and below, 90 square meters to 144 square meters, and 144 square meters and above. Among them, the sales price, area, amount and other data of new commercial residential buildings are directly collected from the online signing data of the local real estate management department; the second-hand residential sales price survey is a non-comprehensive survey, using a combination of key surveys and typical surveys, including reporting by real estate brokerage agencies, a combination of real estate management departments and on-the-spot price collection by investigators.

After completing the data summary, the statistics department will organize and calculate the data, and finally form data reflecting the sales price changes of commercial housing in 70 large and medium-sized cities.

Of course, after each data release, many people still feel that the residential sales price index is different from the actual situation, and sometimes even feel that the "temperature difference" is not small.

This is because, for home buyers, they are often concerned about the price changes of houses for sale. The statistics department will not include the price of houses for sale in the statistical scope. Due to factors such as preferential discounts in the sale of houses, there is often a difference between the actual transaction price and the market price. At the same time, different types of housing have different weights in the calculation of the price index. For housing types with heavy weights, price changes have a greater impact on the index results. The public's feelings about housing prices are generally based only on the types of houses they care about or want to buy. As a result, the public's perception of a single house price is inevitably different from the weighted average price index.

In addition, in actual real estate sales, many real estate developers launch new listings in batches multiple times. For the same real estate project, the prices of different batches of residential properties often vary. In survey statistics, it is necessary to evaluate the average price of each category and eliminate the influence of incomparable factors. This can also easily lead to inconsistencies between the price index and people's feelings.

It should be pointed out that in addition to the residential sales price index, some social institutions are also currently compiling and publishing their own housing price index data. Due to different survey purposes, different data sources, and different calculation methods, the results of these data will be different from the residential sales price index. Therefore, in order to accurately and comprehensively understand the changes in the real estate market, we can use comprehensive analysis based on the characteristics of different indicators. We must not understand the indicators one-sidedly or even misinterpret the data.