In recent days, reports on the scale of vacant houses have sparked heated public discussions about the issue of housing vacancies. What factors are driving up the number of vacant houses? What are the mindsets of those holding multiple properties? And what should be done with these empty homes that prick the nerves of "mortgage slaves"?
Holding Costs Are Not High
Ms. Yang, 52 years old and residing in Laiwu, Shandong Province, purchased a three-bedroom apartment in the provincial capital Jinan a few years ago out of concern for rising housing prices. She planned to move there after retirement, but upon calculating, she found that even if she didn't live there, she would still need to pay over 2000 yuan annually in property fees, which troubled her. However, starting last year, her neighborhood's property management informed her that if her monthly electricity consumption was below 30 kWh and water usage less than one cubic meter, she could pay the property fee at a 70% rate. This way, she could save more than 600 yuan per year on the cost of maintaining her vacant house.
Not only in Shandong, many places offer discounts on property fees for vacant houses, serving as a kind of "bonus" for multi-property holders. In Lanzhou, property fees for houses vacant for more than three months are reduced to 70%. The "Regulations on Property Management of Shijiazhuang City (Revised Edition)" stipulates that "for properties continuously unoccupied, unused, or unrenovated for more than three months, property service fees during the vacancy period will be charged at 20%."
Besides discounted property fees, it is also relatively easy to maintain vacant houses daily. During the promotion season for sea-view houses in Shandong in June and July this year, the Jinan branch of Century 21 organized special trips to view properties by the seaside every Saturday and Sunday. "The owner just needs to make a phone call to suspend water, electricity, and gas services until they are needed again, much like pausing and resuming a mobile phone service," said Hu Yanli, a real estate agent organizing the viewing tours, to potential buyers. "Even if you don't use this house right away, keeping it for vacations, retirement, or investment is quite suitable."
Long-Term Holding Against Inflation
Some multi-property holders told reporters that "long-term holding to resist inflation" is an important reason why they are unwilling to give up their vacant houses and dare to hold multiple properties. Li Hongzhao, who works at a bank in Shandong, despite still repaying his first home loan, seized a recent opportunity for a discounted purchase and took out another loan to buy a new house, becoming the owner of two properties. Li Hongzhao said: "The earlier you buy a house, the less you lose. One I live in, and the other I reserve for my parents. Neither of these two houses can be sold. For us small investors, investing in real estate is still more reliable than investing in the stock market."
The mindset of "unwilling to sell, waiting for price increase" has led some multi-property holders to adopt a "reluctant to sell" attitude. At a real estate intermediary on Shungeng Road in Jinan, I coincidentally met Ms. Zhang who came here to list her second-hand house for sale. She told me that she had recently bought her third house and thus considered selling her first old house. "I mainly came here to understand the market situation. If the house still has appreciation potential, I won't sell it for now."
What Should Be Done With Vacant Houses
Li Tiangang, director of the Real Estate Research Center at Shandong University, said that the causes of vacant houses are complex. There are policy factors from the past such as "housing reform housing," which allowed some families to own multiple affordable houses; unit-funded housing construction has resulted in numerous "one household with multiple houses" phenomena; and in recent years, some wealthy individuals believe there are no good investment targets, so they use idle funds to invest in purchasing multiple commercial properties.
Zhang Weiguo, director of the Institute of Economics at the Shandong Academy of Social Sciences, believes that insufficient supply of public rental housing and economic housing, combined with the long-term expectation of rising housing prices, make many people always have a desire to buy houses. Once they purchase a house, even if the price increases slightly, they are reluctant to sell their houses easily, instead choosing to hold them long-term while waiting for appreciation.
Li Tiangang suggested that the state could reduce the scale of vacant houses by charging certain taxes on them. He said that the existing vacant houses should ideally flow into the second-hand housing market. To accelerate this turnover speed, the state could introduce corresponding regulatory policies to increase the holding costs of vacant houses, making multi-property holders feel pressured. When most ordinary people no longer regard real estate as a premium investment target, the addition of new vacant houses will significantly decrease. By reporter Jia Guodong
(Exclusive report by Xinhua News Agency in Jinan on August 8)