Does the election affect home buying? More than half disagree

The seven-in-one election is coming up at the end of the year, and real estate agencies recently conducted a home purchase intention survey for the first quarter of 2014. The respondents felt that the election issue had little impact; instead, 53% of respondents believed that the QE taper would drive housing prices down. In mid-to-late December 2013, Sinyi Realty conducted a survey of internet users on home purchase intentions for the first quarter of 2014. During the survey period, the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) had just announced that quantitative easing (QE) would be reduced, and the Ministry of Finance in December raised the bubble theory regarding the housing market, affecting the public's view of the future housing market.

The survey asked whether the local chief executive election at the end of 2014 would affect the willingness to buy a home. Respondents felt that the election issue had little impact; as many as 52% of respondents said they were "unclear or unable to judge," 21% said they would buy before the election, and 27% leaned toward buying after the election, with no particularly obvious difference.

As for the issue of QE exit, 53% of respondents believed housing prices would fall, 32% believed there would be no impact, and 15% believed housing prices would rise. As for the recent rise in the prices of daily necessities, 48% of respondents had the idea of buying a home to hedge against inflation, while 43% did not. Zeng Jingde, project manager of the Sinyi Realty Real Estate Research Office, pointed out that the Ministry of Finance recently, unusually, warned at high volume about the problem of excessively high housing prices, even using expressions such as "the last gasp of a spent force" and "yellow rubber duck" to strongly express its views on housing prices. Combined with the gradual reduction of the QE policy, the overall market's sentiment toward asset prices shifted from neutral optimism to wait-and-see hesitation. Fortunately, global stock markets continued to rise, and the overall economic outlook was optimistic, but the current housing price level is already high, and the chance of consolidation in the future is relatively high.

Zeng Jingde said that the government's warnings about housing prices may affect the public's willingness to buy homes and shift it toward a wait-and-see approach. However, judging from the survey data, respondents were not completely optimistic or pessimistic; instead, most maintained a relatively neutral view of the housing market. It is expected that development in 2014 should trend toward stability, and this can also serve as an observation for predicting the housing market during the 329 sales period.