Housing is closely related to the vital interests of the people. The Central Economic Work Conference held in December 2024 clearly proposed to “continue to make sustained efforts to stabilize the real estate market” and “promote the construction of a new model for real estate development, and orderly establish relevant basic systems.”

At the beginning of the new year, reporters visited several places and learned that, driven by a series of policy measures, real estate transactions in first-tier cities and some hot second-tier cities have continued to rebound, and the real estate market has shown positive changes. Recently, many places have issued new real estate policies, with some cities extending the duration of certain real estate policies, and implementing various existing and incremental policies from both the supply and demand sides to consolidate the trend of stabilizing the real estate market.

New home sales remain active, and second-hand home transactions remain hot
On January 12th, a new development in Huangpu District, Shanghai, officially opened for sale, achieving sales of 6.6 billion yuan on the first day. Reporters saw at the opening that home buyers arrived early, with nearly 200 groups of customers filling the venue, waiting to select their homes.

Since the fourth quarter of last year, the fervor for new home sales in Shanghai has not diminished. Chen Jie, Director of the Center for Housing and Urban Development Studies at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, said that after the Political Bureau of the Central Committee proposed to “promote the stabilization of the real estate market” on September 26th last year, relevant departments have rolled out a combination of policies, sending a strong and positive policy signal.

Reporters learned that the new and second-hand home markets in the first-tier cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen have remained active, with transaction volumes in December 2024 reaching new highs for the year.

In terms of new homes, agency data shows that in December, the transaction volume of new commodity residential properties in Beijing was 5,186 units, a month-on-month increase of 17.1%; the transaction area of new commodity residential properties in Shanghai was 827,000 square meters, a month-on-month increase of 5.5%. Data from the Guangzhou Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau shows that the daily average online transaction volume of new commodity homes in Guangzhou was 52,100 square meters, a month-on-month increase of 22.0%. Data from the Shenzhen Real Estate Information Platform shows that the transaction area of new commodity residential properties in Shenzhen was 717,800 square meters, a year-on-year increase of 159.3%.

On the afternoon of January 11th, reporters visited the Dahongmen Contract Signing Service Center of Lianjia in Beijing and saw that all 11 signing rooms were fully occupied. Zhang Yuting, the head of the service center, said that in December 2024, the average daily number of transactions on weekends exceeded 40, with signing often continuing until midnight.

Entering January, especially as the Spring Festival approaches, the transaction volume has slowed slightly, with an average daily volume of nearly 30 transactions on weekends.

Official data shows that in December 2024, the transaction volume of second-hand homes in Shanghai reached 29,700 units, the highest monthly peak in the past 47 months; the daily average online transaction volume of second-hand commodity homes in Guangzhou was 50,300 square meters, a year-on-year increase of 18.5%; the online signing volume of second-hand residential properties in Beijing was 21,556 units, a year-on-year increase of 66%, reaching a new high in 21 months.

The heat in the first-tier cities has also spread to more second-tier cities. Since November last year, the number of second-tier cities with year-on-year growth in new home transactions has continued to expand, with more second-tier cities seeing more active entry of first-time and upgrade buyers. At the beginning of 2025, Kunming, Xiamen, Wuhan, and Yuhang District of Hangzhou, among others, have issued new real estate policies to consolidate the trend of market recovery.