After the proposal to cancel the housing provident fund, change to an enterprise annuity in February and arouse heated discussion, in April, Huang Qifan, deputy chairman of the China International Economic Exchange Center, again called for the abolition of provident fund to change annuity First, the housing provident fund system has basically completed its mission. Second, it can set up a new special housing bank to provide people with low-interest loans to support the purchase of new houses. Third, it can reduce the burden of the enterprise while not changing the welfare of the people. Solve the problem of pension funds.
Are housing provident funds really optional? Is it feasible to support alternative purchases? With the abolition of the housing provident fund, can all these problems be solved?
Has the mission been completed?
Has the mission been completed?
The housing provident fund system originated in Singapore and was promoted in China in the 1990s. At that time, due to poor housing conditions, large demand, and insufficient funds, some areas of China gradually followed the example of Singapore to set up a provident fund, and individuals, enterprises, and the state each contributed part of the fund to public housing to solve the contradiction between housing supply and demand at that time.
Huang Qifan pointed out that after 1995, almost all commercial banks began to provide mortgage loans. At present, China’s real estate system has basically been established, and the commercial loan system for purchasing commercial housing has gradually become mainstream. When the commercial housing market cycle has been formed, the initial mission of the provident fund has been basically completed. At the same time, the low value-added income of the provident fund will also cause the problem of unfair distribution, which can be changed to enterprise annuity.
According to this statement, even if the provident fund system withdraws from the historical stage, the existing commercial loan system can still meet people’s demand for housing loans. From the perspective of the loan capacity of the commercial bank loan system, this statement is not a problem, but from the perspective of loan purchase intention, this statement is obviously untenable.
Zhao Xiuchi, vice president and secretary general of Beijing Real Estate Law Society and professor of Capital University of Economics and Business, told China News Weekly that the housing provident fund system is the product of housing system reform and is housing It is an important welfare for employees to covertly make up the products of making up.It is a system established to solve the housing problem. At present, for housing groups with living difficulties, the housing provident fund has two main functions: one is to support the provident fund loan and repayment function; the other is that it can be used as a down payment when buying a house; the housing problem of ordinary people still has not been solved, and the housing provident fund As an important source of funds to solve the housing problem, it still has its value, and it is not suitable to cancel the housing provident fund.
In fact, the above statement that the provident fund has basically completed its mission is precisely viewed from the first function of the provident fund, that is, the supply system of commercial banks can meet people ’s loans Demand, but this is not the case on the mortgage demand side.
A general manager of marketing for a real estate company told China News Weekly that as long as the purchasers of their projects can use the provident fund loans, they will still prefer the housing provident fund.
The National Housing Provident Fund Annual Report 2018 published by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development showed that in 2018, 2.5258 million personal housing loans were issued for housing provident funds, with an amount of 102.185 billion yuan. An increase of 7.17% over the previous year. At the end of 2018, a total of 33.482 million personal housing loans and 85.821 billion yuan were issued, an increase of 8.18% and 13.52% respectively from the end of the previous year; the balance of personal housing loans was 49845.78 billion yuan, an increase of 10.65% from the end of the previous year; the personal housing loan rate was 86.04%.
According to the number of people, the provident fund in 2018 alone supports 2.5258 million people to buy a house. As of the end of 2018, the provident fund supports a total of 33.342 million people to buy a house. The balance of housing loans was 49845.78 billion yuan, and the balance of China ’s personal housing loans was 25.75 trillion yuan. The provident fund personal housing loans accounted for nearly 20% of the total loan balance. From the perspective of capital utilization, the personal housing loan rate in 2018 (i.e. annual The ratio of personal housing loans at the end of the year to the ratio of housing provident fund deposits at the end of the year was 86.04%, which remained high for several consecutive years, indicating that the use of provident fund deposits is high and the proportion of personal housing loans is high.
2014-2018 personal housing loan amount and personal housing loan rate.
2014-2018 personal housing loan amount and personal housing loan rate.
Behind this phenomenon, it is because the interest rate of the provident fund loan is lower than that of commercial housing purchase loans, and the cost of housing purchases by people is greatly reduced. According to the calculation of the National Housing Provident Fund Annual Report 2018 by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the current annual interest rate of provident fund loans of more than five years is 3.25%, which is 1.65-2 percentage points lower than the benchmark interest rate of commercial personal housing loans in the same period. Personal housing loans can save interest expenses of RMB19,098 million for loan employees, and an average of RMB80,000 can be saved for each loan.
In fact, only the interest cost of commercial housing loans has become an unbearable weight for home buyers. According to the central bank’s announcement, at the end of 2019, the balance of personal housing loans was 30.07 trillion yuan, an increase of 16.7% year-on-year. If calculated at the average annual interest rate of 5.3% for commercial home purchase loans, Chinese home buyers only pay up to 16,000 yuan in housing loans each year.
Zhao Xiuchi said that the provident fund loans mainly support the first-person housing and other groups in need. The provident fund loans can greatly reduce the cost of house purchases, while commercial loans will significantly increase the cost of house purchases. The cost of home purchase by loans is directly related to the willingness to purchase homes by loans. If the cost of loans is too high, even if commercial banks make loans, people ’s normal and reasonable demand for new home purchases will be suppressed. real estate market. In addition, excessively high housing credit will not only overdraft the purchasing power, but will also squeeze other consumption, which is not conducive to China’s economic development.
Is it possible to set up a special housing bank?
Is it possible to set up a special housing bank?
Only from the first function of the provident fund, which is to support home purchase loans, the abolition of the provident fund system will greatly increase the cost of house purchase.
In this regard, Huang Qifan also proposed that for existing provident fund loans, it can be converted into commercial loans at the original interest rate; for new housing purchase needs, a special housing bank can be established , According to the customer category, to solve the housing problem of this group through lower interest rates. However, as to how to set up a special housing bank and how to implement different interest rates for different new customers, Huang Qifan did not make it clear.
Judging from the actual implementation, the establishment of a specialized housing bank may have greater difficulties.
China News Weekly learned from ICBC, CCB, etc. that for the current house purchase customers, the bank ’s mortgage interest rate is LPR (loan market quoted interest rate) plus a certain number of points, and the current LPR is 4.65 over five years %, In order to maintain the stability of the real estate market, the bonus point is generally around 0.65%, that is, the mortgage interest rate remains at around 5.3%, or even slightly higher.
On the one hand, the current five years Provident fund mortgage interest rate over the period is 3.25%, much lower than the commercial mortgage interest rate of about 5.3%, and even lower than the one-year LPR. For commercial banks, from 5.3% to 3.25%, it will obviously give up a very huge Profit space, but also involves many difficult problems such as down payment ratio, loan amount and arbitrage space, the actual implementation is more difficult.
On the other hand, due to the impact of LPR pricing mechanism, LPR one It depends on the convenience of medium-term lending, and it is also equivalent to a preferential interest rate. The difference between the interest rate of LPR and 3.25% of the provident fund loan over five years is too large, even if a special bank is established, it is difficult to achieve the interest rate of 3.25%.
Thirdly, for specialized housing banks, if they want to ensure that people who have difficulty in purchasing houses can enjoy preferential interest rates, then specialized housing banks must have sufficient sources of funds Low capital cost is obviously also a huge difficulty.
Zhao Xiuchi said that the housing provident fund naturally has outstanding advantages in this respect. The provident fund is specially set up to solve the housing problem of employees A kind of savings system, it is not only housing security, but also has the concept of mutual finance. The majority of employees deposit money in the provident fund account to form a savings. Although the deposit interest rate is low, it is because of this that it can be achieved Low-in and low-out, and ultimately achieve low-deposit and low-loan financial system arrangements to ensure that buyers in need can use low-cost provident fund loans. It can be seen that China’s provident fund system not only solves the problem of loan funding, but also solves commercial loans The problem of high capital cost means that the provident fund system is obviously difficult to replace at present. Although the deposit and loan interest rate of the provident fund funds is low The value-added space is not large, and its capital utilization efficiency has also been criticized, but it is undoubtedly that the provident fund has achieved its due role, which is basically consistent with the starting point of the system design.
Chen Huai, director of the Urban and Rural Construction Economics Department of the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and former director of the Policy Research Center of the Ministry of Housing and Construction, said publicly that a large one-time investment in buying a house is a problem for many people. Therefore, there are three main types of housing policy design Supportive policies: First, if someone ca n’t afford it for a lifetime, then policy support is needed