Will the mortgage interest rate be raised if the mortgage interest rate is tightened in many places？
Recently, the real estate market has received more attention. On the one hand, the growth rate of real estate loans continues to decline, on the other hand, mortgage interest rates in various places have increased to varying degrees. How will the regulatory policy be promoted? Will mortgage interest rates continue to rise? In response to the above hot topics, the reporter interviewed a number of industry experts.
Supervision and intensive inspection of real estate financing
Since the beginning of this year, under the main tone of the policy of "housing and not speculating", real estate financing has continued to tighten. The report on the implementation of monetary policy in China in the second quarter recently released by the People’s Bank of China shows that by the end of June, the balance of real estate loans of major financial institutions (including foreign capital) in China was 41.9 trillion yuan, up 17.1% year-on-year, and the growth rate was 1.6 percentage points lower than that at the end of March. Among them, the balance of individual housing loans was 28.06 trillion yuan, up 17.2% year-on-year, and the growth rate was 0.3 percentage points lower than that at the end of March.
These changes in the field of mortgage are closely related to regulatory policies. In May, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development issued an early warning to Foshan, Suzhou, Dalian and Nanning, where the price index of newly-built commercial housing and second-hand housing has increased significantly in the past three months, and some cities with overheated property markets have stepped up regulation. Affected by this, mortgage interest rates in a few popular cities rebounded.
According to the latest monitoring data released by Rong 360 Big Data Research Institute, the average interest rate of the first home loan in July was 5.44%, equivalent to 1.11 times the benchmark interest rate, up 2 basis points from the previous month; The average interest rate of second-home loans was 5.76%, up 1 basis point from the previous month. From the data point of view, the national mortgage interest rate level rebounded in the second half of the year.
In the second half of the year, the trend of stricter supervision became more obvious. At the end of July, the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee held a meeting to plan the economic work in the second half of the year, and made it clear that the house should be used for living, not for speculation, and the long-term management mechanism of real estate should be implemented, and real estate should not be used as a short-term means to stimulate the economy.
Subsequently, the regulatory authorities acted intensively, tightening real estate financing from banks, trusts, open market bonds and other aspects. Recently, China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission launched a special inspection of bank real estate financing, focusing on the management of real estate development loans and land reserve loans in 32 cities, and severely investigated and dealt with all kinds of illegal acts of diverting funds into the real estate industry.
While the financing of real estate enterprises has been significantly tightened, the supervision of personal housing credit business has also been further strengthened. The recent symposium on the adjustment and optimization of credit structure of banking financial institutions held by the central bank proposed to maintain a reasonable and moderate growth of personal housing loans, and it is strictly forbidden to use consumer loans for buying houses illegally. China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission began to check the implementation of differentiated credit policies of banks, implemented the minimum down payment ratio and loan restriction policy requirements, performed the assessment and inspection of the authenticity of down payment funds and the solvency of loan applicants, and focused on investigating the misappropriation of personal comprehensive consumer loans, business loans, "down payment loans", credit card overdrafts and other bank credit funds in the real estate sector.
Interest rates in many places have risen to varying degrees.
It is worth noting that the monitoring data of Rong 360 Big Data Research Institute shows that the trend of mortgage interest rates in first-tier cities and second-tier cities in July is quite different.
Among the first-tier cities, the mortgage interest rates in Beijing and Guangzhou were the same as last month, while the average level in Shanghai and Shenzhen declined. Among them, many banks in Shanghai lowered the mortgage interest rate, which led to a decrease of 7 basis points in the first home loan interest rate in Shanghai, second only to Haikou, making it the second largest city in China. In second-tier cities, mortgage interest rates in several popular areas have risen. Among them, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Dalian and Changsha have accelerated the frequency of adjustment, and have recently raised the mortgage interest rate more than once, and some banks have tight quotas and even suspended accepting mortgage business.
In this regard, Ceng Gang, deputy director of the National Finance and Development Laboratory, thinks that we should look at it differently. First of all, not all urban mortgage interest rates are rising, which shows that policy regulation is accurate, because normal credit should exist. Secondly, it is not necessary to increase the mortgage interest rate. The key is to block the illegal entry of funds into the real estate sector.
"In the environment of tightening policies, commercial banks tend to be cautious about personal housing loan business." Dong Ximiao, deputy dean of Chongyang Financial Research Institute of Renmin University of China, said that after the large-scale credit supply in the first half of the year, the credit line was relatively small in the second half of the year, and an appropriate increase in interest rates would help banks improve their income level. At the same time, in recent years, the leverage ratio of China’s residential sector has risen rapidly, and real estate financial risks are accumulating. Raising the loan interest rate will help commercial banks to better guard against housing loan risks.
Dong Ximiao said that in the case that the market liquidity is still reasonable and abundant, although the interest rate of individual housing loans may be further raised, the increase will not be too large. "However, different banks have different positioning for personal housing loan business, and the credit resources invested for this purpose are quite different, so there will be obvious differentiation in the loan interest rate. It is expected that the personal housing loan interest rate of large commercial banks will maintain a moderate upward trend." He said.
Implement differentiated housing credit policies
"In combination with recent policies, banks will adjust their credit structure in the future to reduce the credit resources occupied by the real estate industry and invest more credit funds in manufacturing, small and medium-sized enterprises and other fields encouraged by the state." Li Wanfu, an analyst at Rong 360 Big Data Research Institute, said.
At the same time, industry experts believe that commercial banks should continue to implement differentiated housing credit policies. Dong Ximiao said that we can start from four aspects. First, adjust the total amount of loans and reasonably determine the total amount of personal housing loans of banks; The second is to adjust the loan price and raise or lower the interest rate of individual housing loans; Third, adjust the loan conditions, tighten or relax the loan qualification conditions (including loan qualification and loan term) of the main body of the house purchase; The fourth is to adjust the down payment of loans and control the leverage ratio of buyers.
"In the next step, we should comprehensively use the above four means according to the different purchase areas and subjects, combining quantity and price, adjusting the total amount and price, meeting the rigid demand and restraining investment speculation, focusing on the present and guiding expectations, and implementing the differentiated housing credit policy." Dong Ximiao said.
Regarding the strict investigation of "down payment loan" by the regulatory authorities, Ceng Gang said: "Down payment is one of the means of bank risk control, because self-owned funds are an important standard to measure repayment ability. If the customer’s down payment is borrowed, then the bank’s risk exposure will be great. "
In addition, some experts have warned that paying attention to the entry of credit funds into the property market should not only focus on commercial banks and consumer finance companies. Various Internet lending platforms monitor the flow of funds less, and the proportion of entering the property market may be higher.
"We should continue to intensify the clean-up and rectification of various Internet platforms, and strengthen the monitoring of their lending business in terms of lending purposes and capital flow." Dong Ximiao said that monitoring the flow and use of credit funds is a long-standing problem for both financial institutions and Internet platforms. Relevant institutional measures should be revised to incorporate fictitious loan purposes and misappropriation of credit funds into the credit information system, increase the illegal cost of borrowers, and curb the illegal flow of personal credit funds into the property market from the source.
(Reporter Qian Wei Intern Zhang Ziyue)