How thick is the land property of developers who have invested heavily in ＂staking the land＂？
Since the beginning of this year, listed real estate companies have raised more than 100 billion yuan in total through additional issuance, and these companies have been staking huge sums of money in major cities.
Financing-the issuance of real estate stocks is booming
According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, from January to June in the first half of the year, the housing sales prices in 70 large and medium-sized cities in China increased by 5.6%, 5.9%, 5.9%, 5.4%, 6.4% and 7.1% respectively, showing an overall upward trend. The rising house prices make investors look forward to the future performance growth of real estate listed companies. Poly Real Estate opened at 44.62 yuan on July 2 and reached a stage high of 87.99 yuan on August 27. It only took more than a month, and its share price rose by nearly 100%.
The good performance of real estate stocks has brought opportunities for listed companies to raise funds through the capital market. In July this year, gemdale issued 173 million A shares, successfully raising 4.5 billion yuan. In August, gemdale announced that it planned to issue corporate bonds of no more than RMB 1.2 billion. In addition, the company also plans to publicly issue no more than 360 million A shares.
In August, Vanke A-share issuance raised 10 billion yuan, which was the highest single fundraising record in the history of China’s stock market issuance. Later, it was announced again that it planned to issue corporate bonds with a total amount not exceeding 5.9 billion yuan.
Other companies don’t want to be left behind at all. In August, Poly Real Estate publicly raised 7 billion yuan, and suning universal plans to issue 380 million-420 million shares, raising as much as 11 billion yuan; Qixia Construction, Shennanguang A, and SIIC Development also issued additional issuance plans, raising a total of 7.19 billion yuan …
According to incomplete statistics, since the beginning of this year, listed real estate companies have raised more than 100 billion yuan by issuing additional shares and placing shares.
Enclosure-non-stop of listed companies
What do most listed companies do with huge financing? The Research Report on Competitiveness of Real Estate Enterprises in China released by the State Council Development Research Center on September 16th shows that with the continuous adjustment of national land and real estate financial control policies, real estate enterprises are constantly innovating financing channels, the capital scale is rapidly expanding, and the land purchase area is also increasing.
Obviously, almost all the financing is put on the land reserve, which can directly push up the company’s future development evaluation.
Listed companies hold huge sums of money to bid for land plots. As a direct result, land prices across the country keep hitting new highs, and records in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Dongguan, Tianjin, Xiamen and other places are constantly being refreshed, and one by one "land kings" make their debut: Shanghai and suning universal Group won the unit price "land kings" with a floor price of 67,000 yuan/square meter and a sky-high price of 4.4 billion yuan; Wuhan and Shanghai Yuyuan Mall won a piece of land at a sky-high price of 3.502 billion yuan …
In this regard, many people in the industry are not worried. Because the land king effect not only leads to the rise of land price, but also has obvious pulling effect on house price. There are endless examples of rising prices of surrounding buildings for sale due to rising land prices all over the country. At the Boao Real Estate Forum in August 2007, Chen Qizong, chairman of Hang Lung Group, one of the four largest real estate developers in Hong Kong, warned: "In fact, there has been a phenomenon that’ flour is more expensive than bread’ in mainland land transactions, which means that the price of land is higher than the surrounding housing prices, which is very dangerous."
Land hoarding-giants occupy a lot of resources
In recent years, developers have repeatedly commented that the rise in housing prices is mainly attributed to the lack of land supply. The land management department has repeatedly clarified that the land supply is not scarce. What is the truth?
Although it is difficult for us to know how much real estate enterprises have, they clearly give us the answer in the interim report of real estate enterprises.
According to the interim report of Country Garden, a real estate company listed in Hong Kong, as of August 15th, the company’s land reserve was 54 million square meters, an increase of 180% compared with 19 million square meters before listing on April 20th, making it one of the largest real estate companies in China. According to the latest announcement of Vanke, the total land reserve of Vanke is 21.57 million square meters, of which the construction area belonging to Vanke’s rights and interests is 18.18 million square meters. And with the completion of Vanke’s 10 billion yuan public offering, it is believed that the investment in land reserve will continue to expand.
According to the mid-year report, Poly Real Estate had a land reserve of 10.07 million square meters as of July 31. In 2007, China Merchants Property added a land reserve construction area of 1.68 million square meters, and gemdale won five projects in the first half of the year, with a leasable construction area of 2.35 million square meters …
Ye Jianping, director of the Land Management Department of Renmin University of China and director of the Real Estate Information Center, believes that it is understandable for developers to hoard land on a large scale as an enterprise behavior under the conditions of market economy. From a social point of view, this kind of behavior has certain negative effects, because the scarcity of land brings monopoly to enterprises and forms monopoly prices. Although the statistics of the land department show that the supply of land is very large, the core of the problem lies in how to improve the effective supply of the final product (housing), otherwise, it is easy to form a monopoly of land from government to enterprise. Therefore, he suggested that the competent authorities should adjust by dividing plots and increasing effective supply. At the same time, additional clauses can be added to the land transfer contract to clarify the development cycle, so that the government’s land supply can be quickly transformed into effective supply through management means.
Professor Liu Hongyu, director of Tsinghua University Real Estate Research Institute, reminded that the greater the land reserve, the greater the risk of future market changes. I hope enterprises can think calmly.
Worry-linkage of risks in property market and stock market
According to insiders, most of the land hoarded by developers was acquired before the "August 31 deadline" in 2004. According to the national regulations, after August 31st of that year, the operating land shall not be sold by agreement, and shall be subject to public bidding. Since then, developers have shouted "lack of land" every year. Moreover, with the gradual tightening of bank credit in recent years, the developer’s capital chain is generally tight.
But in the big bull market, real estate enterprises have innovated financing channels. Compared with the strict examination of bank loans, in terms of high cost, financing from the stock market has low cost, no need to repay capital and interest, and the risks are scattered and passed on to real estate investors, and big real estate developers are of course very happy to do it. As a result, outside the two gates of "credit" and "land", which are strictly controlled by real estate macro-control, real estate giants can finance the enclosure more easily.
Rising house prices-appreciation of real estate stocks-huge financing enclosure-sufficient land reserves to raise stock prices and high land prices to raise house prices … A circular picture of the stock market, land and property market dancing hand in hand with high prices seems to have emerged in front of our eyes!
This is a picture worthy of our vigilance. Ye Jianping believes that there are risks involved. At present, enterprises take land at a high price because they can pass on the cost to the market, and some buyers can absorb the rising cost. If the situation changes in the future, the expected cost of land will be out of touch with the actual cost, which may lead to the break of the capital chain of real estate enterprises. This is the risk of real estate enterprises themselves, but it is not terrible. What really needs to be vigilant is the second risk, that is, the risk of the joint financial market, which may lead to the systematic risk of the real estate market gradually shifting to the stock market.
Liu Hongyu also believes that this cycle has bred huge real estate price risks and stock price risks. Therefore, at present, when house prices and stock prices are at a high level, we must warn of risks and invest rationally. (Shen Yin Zhang Xiangyong)
Editor: Zhang Pengfei