Long Read: Why China’s Housing Market Could Rise From the Ashes in 2025

Government support policies have helped arrest the plunge in sales and first-tier cities are starting to see a recovery that could spread

Following the support policies unveiled by the government, 2025 should start to see the housing market form a bottom and the decline in sales value start to narrow significantly.

China’s real estate sector has been in a downturn for more than three years. New-property sales measured by floor space and by value amounted to 1.8 billion square meters and 18 trillion yuan ($2.8 trillion), respectively, at their peak in 2021, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) show. But those two indicators slumped to 974 million square meters and 9.7 trillion yuan in 2024.

Hundreds of real estate developers have filed for bankruptcy in recent years and dozens have been delisted, including some large builders whose annual sales once exceeded 100 billion yuan. Many listed private developers have fallen into a spiral of debt restructuring.