At present, Xi'an, Zhengzhou, Nanjing, Jinan, Hefei, Shenyang, Qingdao, Changsha, Suzhou and other cities with a permanent population of more than 5 million have successively introduced policies to settle down after buying a house. Cities with a permanent population of less than 3 million have basically achieved "zero settlement". Threshold". In addition, cities such as Qingdao and Shenyang have directly proposed that people can settle down by renting a house. Recently, various cities have gradually relaxed the conditions for settling down. "Caijing" statistics found that among the megacities with a permanent population of more than 10 million in the country, in addition to the four core first-tier cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen and Tianjin, Chongqing, Chengdu, Dongguan, Wuhan and Hangzhou have all introduced policies that allow you to apply for settlement by purchasing a house. policy. Megacities with a population of more than 5 million (Xi'an, Zhengzhou, Nanjing, Jinan, Hefei, Shenyang, Qingdao, Changsha, Suzhou) have also successively introduced policies to settle down after buying a house. Cities with a permanent population of less than 3 million have basically achieved "zero threshold for settlement" ”. In addition, provincial capital cities such as Qingdao and Shenyang even directly propose renting a house to settle down. This is not the first time that the policy of buying a house and settling down has appeared. As early as 2006, 2008 and 2015, popular settlement cities such as Hangzhou relaxed the policy requirements for home purchase and settlement in restricted areas three times. However, around 2016, in response to the "Plan for Promoting the Settlement of 100 Million Non-Household Population in Cities" issued by the General Office of the State Council, "large and medium-sized cities are not allowed to set settlement restrictions by purchasing houses, investing in taxes, etc.", such as Chengdu Other cities have begun to replace the original household registration policy with a dual-track household registration transfer policy system that combines conditional household registration and points-based household registration. Many experts interviewed by Caijing said that this purchase of houses will have a certain positive effect on stabilizing the property market, and more cities may follow suit. Li Jia, deputy director of the Institute of Aging Society of Pangu Think Tank, told Caijing that the frequent introduction of settlement policies is related to the downturn in housing prices in some cities. In the face of sluggish housing prices, some cities want to attract floating populations, especially those from rural areas and small towns, through home purchase and settlement policies. This will expand the rigid demand for housing purchases from marriage and childbirth to education, medical care, etc., and promote the recovery of housing prices. Some residents told Caijing that since real estate is bundled with functions such as settlement, children's schooling, and social services, those who buy houses and settle there often expect to benefit from the future development of the local area. Lu Ming, a professor at the Antai School of Economics and Management at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, told Caijing that major cities have successively introduced free household registration for buying a house, which is expected to promote population flow to places with fast economic growth and many employment opportunities. This policy will not only help increase individual employment opportunities and income, but also improve the efficiency of human resource allocation at the macro level, reduce the negative effects of population reduction, and promote sustainable urban development.   New first-tier cities are intensifying their efforts to buy houses and settle in them, while core cities are still waiting and watching. Many parties placed their hope on purchasing houses and settling in to stimulate the real estate market, but the effect was not as good as expected. Take the "four housing price tigers" Xiamen, Nanjing, Suzhou and Hefei as examples. These cities have completely abolished housing purchase restrictions for more than half a year. Recently, Hefei, Nanjing and Suzhou have once again launched new policies for home purchase and settlement, seeking further recovery in the property market. In September 2023, the Office of the Hefei Joint Conference on Real Estate Market Regulation issued the "Notice on Further Optimizing Real Estate Regulation Policies", announcing that purchase and sale restrictions will be completely cancelled. In terms of adjusting the purchase restriction policy, it is said that ordinary home buyers who purchase housing (including second-hand housing) in the city's urban areas will no longer be reviewed for home purchase qualifications. However, after the promulgation of the new policy, the recovery of commercial housing in Hefei's main urban area is still lower than expected. According to statistics from the Anhui Local First Housing Research Institute, in the first 10 months of 2023, the transaction amount of commercial housing in Hefei urban area was 83.634 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 1.09%, the transaction area was 3.7621 million square meters, a year-on-year decrease of 8.67%, and the number of transactions was 29,650 units. It fell by 12.8%. In the first 11 months, the transaction amount, transaction area and number of transactions fell by 5.1%, 12.6% and 17.0% respectively year-on-year, showing an accelerated downward trend. In the first quarter of this year, these three data further reached a month-on-month decrease of 50.3%, 50.7%, and 49.7%, and a year-on-year decrease of more than 60%. On May 16, Hefei issued another new policy, announcing that if the ownership of a local commercial residential house is legally obtained, the individual, his spouse, children, and parents can apply to the public security bureau where the house is located for household registration transfer. Previously, there were still certain restrictions on settling in Hefei, that is, "when the area of ​​the purchased house is less than 60 square meters, the buyer can only move into the household registration of himself, his spouse and one minor child, and parents and other children cannot settle down." ”Nanjing and Suzhou, as hotspot cities in the Yangtze River Delta region, experienced an initial increase and then a decrease in property market popularity in the first half of 2024. In this regard, Chen Wenjing, market research director of the China Index Research Institute, analyzed that as the backlog of home purchase demand in the early second quarter has basically been released, the market has shown a cooling trend. In April, the transaction area of ​​commercial residential buildings in key cities in the region fell by 27.9% month-on-month. From May to June, The market continues its downward trend. Taking Nanjing as an example, the city’s transaction volume in March reached a peak of 991,500 square meters in the first half of the year. The market gradually began to decline in mid-to-late March. After that, in May, Nanjing once again introduced property market control policies for some streets in the main urban area and Jiangbei New District. . On May 11, Nanjing issued the "Notice on Matters Concerning the Settlement of Legally Stable Residences" to facilitate residents with legal housing to apply for household registration transfer. According to regulations, people with legal real estate in urban areas of Nanjing can apply to move their household registrations, and their spouses, unmarried children and retired parents can also move together. Previously, Nanjing officially implemented the points settlement plan on February 1, 2017, and retained the transition period until August 1, 2018, officially abolishing the policy of settling down after buying a house. Until October last year, Nanjing targeted people with residence permits in the six districts of Nanjing, social security for more than 6 months (inclusive), college graduates under 35 years old (inclusive) who have paid social security, and three provinces and one city in the Yangtze River Delta (Jiangsu, Anhui, Zhejiang). , Shanghai) social security payment accreditors have relaxed the settlement conditions, and in March this year, increased the proportion of residence and social security bonus points in the point settlement indicators. On June 2, the leading group of the real estate long-term mechanism pilot work in Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province issued the "About The 16 measures in the "Notice on Several Policies and Measures to Further Promote the Stable and Healthy Development of the Real Estate Market in Our City" propose that non-Suzhou registered residents who have purchased or owned houses with legal property rights and actually live in this city can apply for settlement. It is understood that the city's new home market and second-hand market both showed a rebound trend that month. However, in terms of second-hand home transaction performance, although Suzhou's second-hand home transaction volume reached 5,122 units in June, it achieved a slight growth of 3.22% compared with 4,962 units in May. , but in the first half of this year, a total of 29,263 second-hand houses were sold in Suzhou, compared with 37,406 units in 2023, the year-on-year decline is still as high as 21.77%. However, Caijing found that while cities have generally relaxed policies for home purchase and settlement, core first-tier cities are still in a wait-and-see mode. Among first-tier cities, only Guangzhou and Shanghai are promoting the relaxation of household registration restrictions on home purchases. Compared with other cities where you can settle down by buying a house, cities such as Beijing and Shanghai have not yet fully relaxed the restrictions on settlement. Zhang Dawei, chief analyst of Centaline Real Estate, said that as of now, there are still four first-tier cities in the country, Tianjin, Hainan and other places that have not yet fully implemented the policy of giving a household registration when buying a house. Super first-tier cities have the conditions to liberalize settlement, but the willingness is not strong. Core cities such as Beishang are more inclined to expand outward, such as promoting the development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and Yangtze River Delta metropolitan areas. ”Li Jia said. Li Jia told Caijing that the technical conditions for zero-threshold settlement are mature. However, the household registration is bound to too many other factors, such as house purchase, employment, education, etc., which involve all aspects and affect the whole body. At the same time, there are differences in social security and medical insurance in different regions, further exacerbating the complexity of settlement. On May 28, the General Office of the Guangzhou Municipal People's Government issued the "Notice on Further Promoting the Stable and Healthy Development of the City's Real Estate Market", which proposed that in Yuexiu, Haizhu, Liwan, Tianhe, and Baiyun (excluding Jianggao Town, Taihe For those who purchase a house in districts such as Hehe Town, Renhe Town, Zhongluotan Town, Nansha and other districts, non-local residents who are registered in this city can provide proof of continuous personal income tax payment or social insurance certificate in this city in the six months before the date of purchase. Enjoy the benefits of house purchase for registered resident families. Previously, it was required to pay for two years. In Shanghai, singles with non-Shanghai household registration only need to pay social security or personal income tax for three years to buy a house, but they are still not allowed to buy new houses in the outer ring. Residential families can buy new and second-hand houses in the city after paying for three years. In addition, families with multiple children, regardless of whether they have local household registration, can purchase another house on the basis of the existing purchase restriction policy, and the criteria for identifying the first house in personal housing loans have been optimized. Lu Ming told Caijing that the main beneficiaries of the policy are: first, the migrant population without local household registration. The second is young people, whose home loan and down payment thresholds have been lowered. The third is people with replacement needs, such as buyers of improved housing. Now the definition of ordinary housing has been relaxed, and the requirements for buying a second home have been lowered. The policy will release more demand for home purchases and activate the vitality of the real estate market. Should settling in be linked to home purchase? For a long time, many cities in China have tied home purchase and settlement. Judging from past experience, home purchase and settlement will bring a certain amount of new home purchase demand to the local area. Chen Wenjing believes that allowing home buyers to settle down and supporting talents to purchase homes will combine housing policies with population and talent policies, which will help promote the inflow of population and talents, and will also promote the release of demand for home purchases to a certain extent. In the short term, the relaxation of settlement restrictions in various places may have become an important trend; in the medium and long term, the continued introduction of population and talents will provide more housing demand for the real estate market, which is also beneficial to the development of the real estate market. However, Lu Ming said that settlement should be based on actual employment and social security conditions and should not be linked to home purchase. As long as actual employment and social security standards are met, settlement should be allowed. If house purchase is linked to settlement, and settlement is linked to public services, this will actually bias public services to high-income groups with the ability to buy houses, which will in turn exacerbate the inequality of public services. Therefore, the settlement policy should be based on actual employment and social security, avoid tying home purchase and settlement, and promote a more equitable distribution of public services. “For China’s potential floating population, the ability to purchase housing is an important factor in deciding whether to stay in a certain city. Lu Ming said, especially young people who are facing the problem of getting married and having children, they hope to buy a house in a city. For example, if first-tier cities restrict home purchases, they may choose to settle, buy homes, and have children in second-tier cities. In the future, quasi-first- and second-tier cities will see continued population growth together with first-tier cities. It is worth noting that the relaxation of the settlement policy has a certain effect on attracting the population. As the first city in Zhejiang Province to trial the transfer of residence permit to household registration system, Ningbo has relaxed the settlement conditions five times since 2018, which has brought about significant population growth. In 2023, it will be the first to trial the system of continuous residence and registration for three years. The residence permit can be used to move the household registration to Ningbo, further lowering the threshold for household registration. According to the seventh census data, Ningbo’s inflow population from outside the province accounts for 33.4% of the total permanent population. The relationship between buying a house and settling in is not balanced. ”Li Jia told Caijing that you can obtain the qualification for settling in by purchasing a house, and settling in is passively tied to the purchase of a house. However, it is difficult to decouple home purchase and settlement, because the existing settlement policy not only involves household registration, but also bundles other related policies, and new mechanisms need to be introduced to replace the existing model. The settlement policy has limited effect on promoting real estate and talent introduction Although there are considerations behind the intensive introduction of settlement policies to save the housing market, many experts interviewed by Caijing believe that relying on settlement policies to stimulate the real estate market has limited effect. Li Jia told Caijing that relying on home purchases to drive population and real estate can only be effective in the short term. The healthy development of real estate also requires long-term planning to deal with challenges such as the aging population in advance and avoid over-reliance on land finance. Lu Ming told Caijing that the government usually adopts a three-piece package to attract population inflow, namely household registration system, public rental housing and children’s education support. These measures may be effective when the level of economic development is low, especially for newly graduated college students. Certain attraction. With the improvement of economic development level, cities in the current talent competition hope to attract talents with high education level and strong innovative ability. These people increasingly value the comprehensive quality of life in the city. Cities with high quality of life can attract talents to live and work here, especially large cities with better service quality and diversity. They have comparative advantages in advanced manufacturing or producer services and can usually provide more suitable employment opportunities. “China’s housing problem must first strictly distinguish between cities with population inflow and population outflow. Lu Ming said that for cities that can maintain positive population growth, relaxing home purchase policies can release housing demand caused by population flow. However, for areas with negative population growth, this policy will have little impact on the real estate market, and may even lead to further population outflows, making it more difficult for the local real estate market to digest inventory. In some cities with obvious negative population growth and large housing inventories, not only housing, but also Industrial parks and infrastructure are facing idle problems. Lu Ming suggested that reductions in construction and adjustments should be made, otherwise after 20 years of rapid urbanization, some infrastructure and buildings may need maintenance due to aging. If the maintenance cost is too high and there is no ongoing demand, it is better to carry out necessary demolition and reduced construction now to avoid investing a lot of money in the future without actual demand. For example, eight-lane roads have been built in some places, but the traffic volume is very small. Instead of maintaining all eight lanes, it is better to change them to four lanes to meet demand and reduce subsequent maintenance investment. Reducing road investment in the short term may bring long-term financial savings, otherwise insufficient maintenance funds and reduced quality may cause huge hidden dangers. For some cities with great potential for continued population growth, he also believes that the most important supporting measures today are planning for housing and public facilities around residential areas, especially schools and transportation infrastructure, such as the continued construction of rail transit and underground pipelines. Adaptable transformation, forming a relatively independent living circle with complete service supporting facilities, meeting the needs of basic public services and commercial services, and promoting the overall development of the city.