After the government took the regulative policy on Oct. 29, 2003, the house parceling-out market has undergone a serious depression to cause the ongoing and planned real estate development projects to dwindle. Since the post parceling-out system is ex...
After the government took the regulative policy on Oct. 29, 2003, the house parceling-out market has undergone a serious depression to cause the ongoing and planned real estate development projects to dwindle. Since the post parceling-out system is expected to be applicable to the non-residence building development project from the second half of 2004, the financial institutions in charge of the real estate project financing system will suffer the rising risk. And it will become harder to finance the real estate development project accordingly. However, the construction companies and contractors can raise more diversified kinds of funds for their development projects through the amendment to the Corporate tax Act and the establishment of the indirect real estate investment organizations which intend to induce the financial institutions to participate in the real estate development projects as shareholders. It is necessary to find out the cause of the persistent problems with the by parceling-out, so there has not been a signifiant emphasis on reviewing the business aspect of a given project. Therefore, the proficiency of a business analysis by a financial institution may come in short.
Third, since the arrangement is that the loan principal is to be reimbursed preferably at the time of drawing the parceling-out charge, there may occur a temporary shortage of funds even in cases where there are no problems of ash flow. This can be attributed to the fact that the return of the loan principal is not elastic.
Fourth, when handling the financing of a real estate project, the financial institution will prepare for the case where the authorization is delayed or may not be acquired, and since it executes the loans after the authorization has been approved, there lies a problem of timing the necessary funds and the time of execution of loan which may not coincide with each other.
These problems are attributable to the practice that the financial institutions have transferred the risk to other project participants to effectively recover the principal and interest of the loan. A survey conducted among the bankers in charge of the real estate project financing system and the fund managers shows that the majority of the respondents propose either the guarantee system to avoid the risk or the corrective measure and plan to mitigate the risk through the project existing real estate project financing system and offer solution to the problems in order to efficiently cope with the ever-changing circumstance and diversify the financing channels for the real estate development project.
This study points out the following problems by conducting case studies on the bank real estate investment trust, one of the major real estate project financing systems, corporate loan system adopting the project finance, and the specific money trust.
First, in order to avoid the risks involved during the process of replacing a construction company at the time of its non-solvency which may increase the construction cost, extend the business period and especially in the case of an apartment project where the risk of a loan credit can be transformed to a subsequent order. The financial institution, problematically, will limit the participating construction companies to a hand few which are excellent in credit standings.
Second, due to the fact that the real estate project financing has been achieved mainly through the development projects such as apartments with relatively high success rates, and has readily received either a guarantee of responsible completion of construction or a principal payment guarantee from the construction companies, and further more, the collection period of principal payment may be shortened through investment of capital soon after the construction has been authorized or feasibility study by improving their ability to manage the project. It is necessary to promptly introduce the construction completion guarantee system under which the guarantor guarantees the completion of the real estate development project, and to apply the project loan guarantee system in the near future under which the guarantor guarantees the refund of the loan principal and interest to the financial institution as a creditor if the borrower is unable to refund the loan due to bankruptcy of the contractors or poor parceling-out level.
Similarly, as a credit rating company makes an assessment on a bond and opens it's credibility to the public, the real estate development business should systematically cultivate institutions to assess the profitability of a business impartially and furthermore guarantee the assessment, consequently rationalizing the business of real estate development.
Furthermore it is necessary to improve the financial institutions risk management system. That is, the financial institutions should avoid the risk by ensuring a guarantee, conduct an in-depth project feasibility study and improve their risk management capability to secure competitiveness. In addition to partial consultation on the parceling-out ratio, technical, legal and marketing advice should be offered to the financial institutions by external, professional consultants on a wide range of matters that may arise in connection with the proceeding of a project to enhance the project feasibility to a professional standpoint.
Finally, general monetary goods are needed for the consumer. For example, we can consider a package program, so called real estate project financing program which procures the appropriate funds, classified by timing and risks, required for preceding a real estate development project. Of course, although there is even at present a case where banks and mutual savings banks, etc. discuss the fund execution plan based on timing with an identical real estate development project and executes the funds by identities accordingly with the proceedings of a project, still there is plenty of room for improvement since it is far from being systematized. Therefore it appears that the financial institutions should make a more positive review to expand the scope of the real estate project financing system.