Since 2025, news has spread from many places across the country that the sales situation of affordable affordable housing is not ideal. In some cities, there has even been a situation where only one family can choose a house out of a batch of more than 1,000 houses. At present, this situation has not been fundamentally improved.
The sales of these affordable housing projects are hindered for different reasons, but there are also some outstanding commonalities.
First, the locations are generally relatively remote. A large number of unsaleable low-income housing are often built in the outer suburbs of cities, and the surrounding areas lack supporting facilities such as subways, schools, supermarkets, and hospitals. When buying a house, ordinary people have to consider commuting, children going to school, daily grocery shopping, and seeking medical advice. Although the price of affordable housing in the outer suburbs is lower, the cost of living and time costs are much higher, so it is naturally difficult to be attractive.
Secondly, the pricing advantage has been weakened. Under the market conditions of the commercial housing market downturn and developers' price reductions and promotions, the pricing mechanism of affordable housing was not adjusted in a timely manner, and the original price advantage was greatly compressed. For example, in a certain first-tier city, the price of affordable housing is usually about 40% off that of commercial housing in the same area. A few years ago, when commercial housing prices were at their peak, the absolute number of this discount was considerable. However, in recent years, with the overall significant decline in housing prices, the "sense of gain" of buying affordable housing has become much less.
Once again, the shortcomings of product strength are highlighted. The affordable housing units available for sale in most cities are small, with a low proportion of three-bedroom units, and the housing acquisition rate is not high. However, in some cities, families applying for three-bedroom apartments have a strong demand, and there is an obvious gap between supply and real demand. In addition, most affordable housing has a sales restriction period of 5 to 10 years. In the current weak market situation, buyers have increased concerns about the future liquidity of affordable housing.
The original intention of building affordable housing is to solve the housing difficulties of low- and middle-income groups. If the built houses cannot be sold, it will not only fail to achieve the goal of improving people's housing problems, but will also cause huge waste and form new economic "obstructions." Building an affordable housing project can cost anywhere from a few hundred million yuan to several billion yuan. Funds are accumulated in houses that cannot be sold, which can neither be used for new livelihood projects nor occupy valuable land resources. The same is true for commercial housing construction projects.
But the slow sales of affordable housing does not mean that the demand is gone. Recently, some affordable housing projects in Guangzhou, Ningbo and other places have been sold out rapidly, and some projects in Shenzhen have also achieved "secondary completion". It can be seen that this kind of "unsaleable" is not that the overall sales cannot be sold, but that the sales are uneven. Behind the scenes is the mismatch between supply and demand – high-quality projects in core areas still need to be "snatched", while projects in the outer suburbs or with unreasonable pricing are not interested. In a word, this is a kind of "structural unsaleable".
To cope with and avoid the above-mentioned structural contradictions, targeted measures should be taken.
Optimizing site selection is the starting point. The buyers of affordable housing are basically working-class families, who mainly rely on buses and subways to travel. They need to live in a place with good bus network coverage and quick access to work. Along the subway and around industrial parks are ideal targets. Only by building affordable housing in these places can we accurately meet the needs of working-class people. At the same time, it will help improve the efficiency of urban public transportation and improve traffic conditions.
Improving product strength is the core. In addition to project site selection, product strength is mainly reflected in unit types and supporting facilities. Affordable housing is not "low-end housing", and the product logic must be upgraded from "livable housing" to "livable housing". House design must be close to real needs and cannot be decided by individual departments. Necessary supporting facilities must be kept up so that people can not only "come", but also "live safely".
Flexible policy implementation is a "back-up move". For existing projects that are not selling well, the allotment policy should be decisively optimized according to the market situation, including adjusting prices. In recent years, Shenzhen has repeatedly lowered the application threshold for affordable housing, effectively accelerating the elimination of housing supply. Haikou, Xi'an and other places have also achieved similar effects through significant price cuts. For the tasks to be built, it is of course necessary to adjust the planning plan and construction pace in a timely manner to avoid repeating the mistake of "well built but unsaleable".
The construction of affordable housing is an important livelihood project and an important investment of fiscal funds. It must be carefully decided and closely supervised. In the past, some places focused on the construction quantity, operation rate, and completion rate, and did not pay enough attention to whether the project could be sold after completion and to whom. Now that problems have arisen, relevant places cannot turn a blind eye and allow the problems to accumulate. Building affordable housing is only a means, and allowing people to live in good houses is the goal. We should get rid of the misunderstanding of "emphasis on construction and neglect of distribution", and promptly adjust construction, allotment, and leasing plans to avoid resource waste and new structural contradictions.
(The author is the editor of China Business News)
