Struggling in a foreign country, how can “tenants” realize their dream of livability
In the late autumn, Wang Yan, who was sitting in the back seat of the electric motorcycle of the house agency, felt a gust of cold wind blowing on her face, and she couldn’t help but wrap her scarf tightly. She has long been accustomed to walking through the streets and alleys of Beijing in this way, and the anxiety of looking around for a house for a few weeks is tumbling in her heart from time to time. Fortunately, after looking around this time, she finally hit a second bedroom of about 16 square meters in a residential area on the North Fifth Ring Road. Although it was one of the five rooms rented out after the renovation of the three-bedroom and two-living room, life was inconvenient. But it was only 7 kilometers away from the unit, and she hurriedly signed the contract without thinking about it.
“The environment is good, often far away from the subway; the transportation is convenient, many of which are old communities with poor security. The conditions are good, the price is high. Houses that can be’rented well, rented close, and rented safely’ are in Where?” Wang Yan said with a wry smile. The joy of moving to a “new home” was quickly diminished by the helplessness in my heart.
When young people stay in big cities, how can they meet their rental needs? Will the “Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Affordable Rental Housing” (hereinafter referred to as the “Opinions”) be published, and will it be effective to retain people’s hearts with peaceful residences?
A realistic exam question, waiting to be solved.
Rental market: expecting to be standardized, but also in urgent need of “expanding sources”
Wang Yan joined an Internet company in 2020 and settled in Beijing. This year, the total number of floating population nationwide reached 376 million, and the urbanization rate was about 63.9%. According to the press conference of the State Council Information Office, about 70% of new citizens and young people in big cities rely on renting to solve their housing problems.
Taking Shanghai as an example, Chen Jie, director of the Research Center for Housing and Urban-Rural Development of Shanghai Jiaotong University, found that nearly 83% of Shanghai’s overseas residents live in rented houses, and the proportion of local residents who rent houses is also close to 20%. The two figures together account for about three-thirds of the permanent population. one. He also found that the housing increase in Shanghai in the past ten years is mainly concentrated in the new city and suburbs, but the population of these places has not increased correspondingly. The population is still highly concentrated in the central city, and the contradiction between housing supply and demand in the central city is still intensifying.
What is the supply situation in the leasing market?
After joining the company for 5 years and changing houses 3 times, Guo Hong, who has stepped on many “minefields” in renting houses, has a lot of sour stories: for the first time, the landlord temporarily raised the price. She was shy in her pocket when she just worked, and she was embarrassed to ask home. Asking for money, he simply packed his luggage and left, and found a cheap place to stay. The second time, unfortunately, I ran into a “second landlord”. After not staying for long, the real landlord sold the house and had no choice but to move out in a hurry. Nowadays, she lives close to the financial company where she works and is relatively formal, but in order to save money, she can only share with others, and the room area is less than 6 square meters.
Compared with Guo Hong, the experience of data engineer Lin Mingliang made him even more angry: he rented a second bedroom in a certain community in Beijing’s Third Ring Road. The two were actually group rented houses. He negotiated with the intermediary for checking out and refunding the deposit, but he was always prevaricated, and there is still no result.
“The current market-oriented rental situation is not ideal.” Chen Jie said that tenants basically lease from individual landlords through intermediaries; some institutionalized leasing models often have potential risks such as imperfect platforms and unstable leasing relationships; tenants pay Houses that can afford rent are located far away, and rents that are relatively nearby are high, and there is a mismatch in room type, location, and rent.
Outside of the market-based leasing market, government-invested public rental housing is an important force in China’s housing security system. Some experts believe that there can be intersections between affordable rental housing and public rental housing, and the policy refinement and implementation can be connected in the future. However, public rental housing mainly solves the housing problems of urban household registration and income “double-difficult” families, and a few cities will expand to new citizens and young people. Xu Qing, an associate professor at the School of Government Management of Beijing Normal University, compared the number of college graduates in Beijing from 2017 to 2019 working in Beijing with the area of public rental housing started in three years, and found that “the scale of newly built public rental housing is far from meeting the new housing needs of college graduates. “There is an urgent need to revitalize housing stock and expand supply methods.
In this case, the “Opinions” came into being. When many interviewees learned of the new policy on affordable rental housing, they were full of expectations and no shortage of questions: did they meet the standards? Is the application platform transparent and open enough? How big are the houses and where are they built?
Focusing on the characteristics of rented objects, construction subjects, housing conditions, and construction site selection of affordable rental housing, Xu Qing made a summary:
Generally speaking, the building area of the room does not exceed 70 square meters, and the rent is lower than the market price of the same location and quality; all new citizens and young people who have housing difficulties such as college students and migrant workers who have just graduated are eligible to apply. During the construction process, the state guides multi-body investment and multi-channel supply. In order to increase supply, construction is also encouraged on collectively-run construction land, idle land owned by enterprises and institutions, supporting land in industrial parks and idle houses in stock, as well as in old urban areas and areas with convenient transportation.
“Through sufficient rental housing to divert part of the demand for rental housing, and stabilize the rent increase of other retail households and institutions at relatively stable and low prices; when the demand for housing decreases correspondingly, housing prices will also stabilize. This is useful for alleviating the pressure of buying houses in big cities and ensuring real estate. The long-term development of the market is beneficial.” Chen Jie believes that the “Opinions” will play a “ballast stone” role in the rental market.
The government and the market: how the “two hands” can work together
In a quiet place near Chengshou Temple in Beijing, the sign of “Boyue” came into view. The four gray-white buildings are connected by a small square, and cafes and bakeries are distributed on the ground floor of the apartment. The reporter walked from Fangzhuang subway station to here, about 10 minutes away. After registering the visitor’s information, you enter the 3rd floor from the elevator entrance of Building 3, but dozens of single rooms are lined up one by one, the first one is about 20 square meters, and the home appliances are complete. It is reported that when the apartment opens in 2020, the rent per unit is more than 3,000 yuan a month, and there is no intermediary fee. The current rent is rising.
Near Dabaotai Metro Station, 19 kilometers away, Youchao International Apartment has entered the business stage. There are a total of 9 buildings in the community, with more than 2,300 rooms, and the continuous improvement of leisure and entertainment facilities. An “ecological circle” suitable for young people to live in is taking shape. The reporter found that this place is adjacent to the headquarters base, and many large enterprises and research institutes gather here. At present, more than 10 units have signed contracts in the form of group purchases, and employees work and live nearby, and commuting time is greatly shortened, making it possible to “balance job-living”.
In comparison, the two apartments have similarities: companies build rental housing on collective construction land, and village and town collective economic organizations cooperate with companies to operate. In fact, in 2017, the “Pilot Plan for Building Rental Housing Using Collective Construction Land” issued by the former Ministry of Land and Resources and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development clearly set 13 cities such as Beijing and Shanghai as pilots to explore first in expanding the supply of rental housing . And these are just a microcosm of the nationwide exploration of the construction of affordable rental housing.
To allow young people to live in peace, the government and the market need to operate flexibly and organically with the “two hands” of the market, and move forward in continuous adjustment and improvement.
“Building a house requires a large amount of investment in the development and construction phases, and the income cycle is relatively long. From the perspective of short-term and long-term operating benefits, we are very concerned about whether sustainable development is possible.” Manager Xu Yanan said that the country has released a lot of policy dividends, and has given enterprises a series of “reassurances” in terms of simplifying approvals, reducing tax burdens, granting subsidies, and financial support.
The experience of tenants is that some public rental houses and apartments do not have neighborhood committees, lack a complete social work system, and it is difficult to guarantee community management and public services. In addition, high rents, poor housing quality, large pooled areas, and sudden subletting also occur from time to time.
“The water, electricity, coal, and fire safety of the existing housing reconstructions may not be constructed in accordance with the residential housing standards. This requires the relevant departments to re-plan and approve.” Chen Jie encountered similar cases in the investigation: one party actively promoted The other party “stuck” on related matters during the housing renovation. How to effectively coordinate and jointly approve to solve the “dilemma” is also a test and pressure.
Efforts: to build a solid “housing” security net in accordance with local conditions
In the past few days, Liu Shichuan, director of the Industrial Operation Center of Chengdu Rail City Investment Group, has been busy with affordable rental housing. “After linking with the relevant regulations of Chengdu, we plan to deploy 10,000 such houses in TOD.” The TOD he talked about is a comprehensive development project oriented by public transportation. It is convenient to “embed” such houses in it. The daily life of the tenant.
During the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, Chengdu plans to raise 250,000 units of affordable rental housing, of which 60,000 units are planned to be raised in 2021. At the same time, Shanghai proposed to raise 400,000 sets of affordable rental housing, accounting for about 40% of the total housing supply; Guangzhou proposed to build 600,000 sets of affordable rental housing, accounting for about 45% of the total housing supply.
Behind the increasing numbers is the pace of exploration in different cities in accordance with local conditions.
How to make tenants “affordable”? Ni Pengfei, director of the Center for Urban and Competitiveness Research of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that in theory, there are two ways to determine the rent standard. From an enterprise perspective, the method of adding supply costs can be used to add a certain profit on the basis of costs; pricing can also be constrained according to the demand budget, that is, it is estimated and determined according to 30% of the monthly income of local residents. If there is a price difference in between, the government can make up for it.
How to let tenants “rent close”? “Relevant housing can be purchased in the suburbs and surrounding areas of the central city, or combined with the renovation of old houses in the central city and the renewal of the old city, or it can be developed with development zones and industrial areas.” Ni Pengfei said.
In order to prevent all kinds of chaos in renting houses, Ni Pengfei also suggested that the government should promote the creation of an online transaction, supervision, and service platform, so that the supply and demand parties can directly connect in a fairer and more transparent manner.
“Policy fee and tax support must be in place.” Zhao Xiuchi, a professor at Capital University of Economics and Business, realized that “companies still need to maintain a balance between social responsibility and operating income, so as to be conducive to sustainable development.”
Xu Yanan feels deeply about this. She believes that the future direction of the company is to build government-oriented affordable rental housing on leased land and collective construction land, and do a good job in operation and management; second, use non-residential stock land and low-efficiency stock property for reconstruction , Optimizing the residential functional space through “business to residential” and “industrial to residential”.
Zhao Xiuchi reminded that it is necessary to implement the civil water, civil electricity, and civil network policies in a timely manner, and do a good job in gas installation. “There is a large population living in rental housing, and we must prevent and curb the hidden safety hazards of large-scale centralized electricity use.”
“A public service system with the same rights of hire and purchase needs to be established urgently” is an issue of general concern to the interviewed experts. Whether residents can enjoy sound and equal public services should be linked to residence permits, not to “buying a house or not”, which involves systemic reforms in different fields.
In Chen Jie’s view, the implementation of the policy requires “to do our best, to do what we can, to promote the good experience of the grassroots in a timely manner, and to adjust as soon as possible when problems occur.” The government should fully release the policy dividend, do a good job of guidance and supervision, create a solid guarantee for renters, and provide an opportunity for the transformation and development of the real estate industry.
(Some interviewees have pseudonyms)
(Reporter Li Xiao)
Project team: our reporters Li Xiao, Wang Simin, Li Xiaodong, Zhou Hongshuang, Jiang Xinjun
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