Despite the Chinese government’s introduction of various stable property market policies, the situation of year-on-year decline in sales of Chinese real estate companies has not changed. Additionally, this year is a major debt repayment year for real estate enterprises.
According to the China Real Estate Research Institute, in 2024, the total amount of bonds due for real estate enterprises is 770.31 billion yuan, a decrease of 19.6% compared to the previous year’s due balance of over 950 billion yuan, but the overall scale remains at a relatively high level.
Among them, 69.0% of the debt is in credit bonds and 31.0% is in overseas bonds, putting more pressure on domestic debt repayment.
According to a report by “21st Century Business Herald,” official data released by the Chinese government shows that the peak of debt repayment for Chinese real estate companies occurred in 2021. According to statistics from multiple institutions, that year, the total amount of maturing debts of real estate enterprises historically exceeded one trillion yuan, reaching 1.28 trillion yuan. Analysts point out that when considering non-standard debts, the total scale could possibly exceed two trillion yuan.
By 2022, the public debt due for real estate enterprises finally dropped to below one trillion yuan, but still remained relatively high at over 900 billion yuan. During that year, market sales declined, and the debt repayment ability of real estate companies decreased instead of increasing.
In 2023, the market continued to cool down. Although some real estate companies extended the maturity of their debts, the total amount due that year still remained at over 900 billion yuan.
This year, although the total amount of due debts for real estate enterprises has decreased to 770 billion yuan, the continuous year-on-year decline in sales poses significant debt pressure for most companies. A representative from a major real estate enterprise mentioned that the company has stopped acquiring new land this year, and sales revenues will be centralized to the headquarters as much as possible for debt repayment purposes.