Recently, the National Bureau of Statistics of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) released real estate data for the period from January to July, revealing a sharp overall downturn in the market. Despite the official attempts to stabilize the situation, the firsthand experiences of many financial bloggers and ordinary citizens paint a grim picture of a “cliff-like” plunge in the real estate market. From macro-level investment and sales data to micro-level city housing prices and individual wealth, this storm has swept through millions of Chinese households.
On August 15, the National Bureau of Statistics of the CCP issued data on the basic situation of the national real estate market from January to July. Investment, sales, and funds continued to decline.
In terms of investment, from January to July, the national real estate development investment decreased by 12% year-on-year, with a larger decline compared to January to June by 0.8 percentage points, reaching a historically low level. Calculations show that in July, the year-on-year decline in real estate development investment was 17%, expanding by 4.1 percentage points compared to June, marking the largest monthly decline this year.
Sales are also slowing down. From January to July, the sales area of new commercial housing was 515.6 million square meters, down by 4% year-on-year, expanding by 0.5 percentage points compared to January to June; the sales amount of new commercial housing was 495.66 billion yuan, down by 6.5% year-on-year, expanding by 1 percentage point. The decline in sales amount is significantly greater than the sales area, indicating that developers are increasing price cuts.
Housing prices continue to fall. From January to July, the average sales price of commercial housing nationwide was 9,613 yuan per square meter, down by 2.4% year-on-year. In July, among 70 large and medium-sized cities, only 6 cities saw a month-on-month increase in new home prices, 8 fewer than in June; and only 1 city reported an increase in second-hand home prices.
According to a report by China Real Estate Network, based on data from the National Bureau of Statistics of the CCP, in July, the national sales area of new commercial housing was 57.09 million square meters, with sales amounting to 532.5 billion yuan, both showing a month-on-month decline of 46% and 48% respectively.
Financial blogger “Huihu” analyzed that these series of real estate data cannot hide the fact that the real estate market is collapsing – in July, the national sales area and sales amount of new commercial housing saw month-on-month declines of 46% and 48%, which is almost a halving. He emphasized that such a rapid decline in monthly data is extremely rare in the history of China’s real estate market, indicating that the market’s domino effect has been triggered, causing a swift breakdown in market sentiment.
He remarked that the decline in the sales amount of new commercial housing in July outweighing the sales area decline indicates further price drops, rendering the real estate market’s “price in exchange for volume” policy ineffective. He stated that “the monthly data has set a historic new low since 2009, also showing the largest drop in monthly data in the past 17 years.”
From January to July, national real estate development investment decreased by 12% year-on-year, hitting a new low since 2016 with the decline continuing for six consecutive months, showing that developers are extremely pessimistic about the future.
Land sales revenue in the first half of 2025 saw a significant shrinkage by 20.8% year-on-year, reflecting a sharp contraction in local governments’ land finance revenue.
“Huihu” concluded that whether it’s investment, land acquisition, or sales, the entire real estate industry chain is in a state of “sharp decline.” He pointed out that the officially announced new house inventory has reached 760 million square meters, surpassing the historical peak in 2015, and this does not even include the massive inventory of under-construction projects and second-hand houses. He pessimistically stated that the previous “dividend” of rising house prices no longer exists.
“Huihu” criticized the authorities for not daring to disclose the total number of listings for second-hand houses, but only listing the ones for new houses, which also forced platforms like Lianjia to hide historical transaction prices in the Shanghai area. He believed that such behavior precisely demonstrates that market sentiment has long collapsed and cannot be beautified with data.
Blogger “Liu Da” pointed out that in the report from the National Bureau of Statistics of the CCP, using phrases like “narrowing decline” or “slightly lowering,” makes it easy for the public to mistakenly believe that the real estate market is stable and the decline is minimal, achieving the “stability maintenance” effect that the authorities desire.
He emphasized that the prices in the Chinese real estate market are in a phase of accelerating decline, and there have been no signals of any “bottoming out” in the market.
He believed that to understand the Chinese real estate market, one should not only look at the single-point data or wording in official reports but must link the data coherently, make comprehensive judgments from the perspective of trends and historical background to see the true face of its continuous downturn.
Apart from macro data, personal experiences in multiple cities also confirm the brutality of this real estate storm.
Beijing financial blogger “Anxious Coke Cake” recently stated that he personally visited the Hu Fang Qiao area in the Xicheng District of Beijing, and inspected several houses. After conversing with agents, he found that house prices were plummeting rapidly. Within half a year, house prices experienced a brutal drop.
He continued to express astonishment at the magnitude of the price decline, far beyond imagination, and admitted that he never expected the prices to collapse like this. Some homeowners are eager to sell, bringing prices down to historic lows.
“Anxious Coke Cake” discovered that the unit price in the community was 9,800 yuan per square meter in 2020. On October 29 last year, the transaction price had dropped to 6,800 yuan per square meter, a 31% decrease. Assuming that it could be sold for around 63,000 yuan per square meter now due to urgent selling by owners, this represents a 40% drop from the peak. This shift allows those who originally planned to buy within the Third Ring Road to now afford properties in the Second Ring Road.
A web user from Taiyuan, Shanxi, expressed deep sorrow, mentioning that many families in Taiyuan are on the brink of collapse. At least one-third of families are already bankrupt because their debts exceed the value of their real estate assets. He emphasized that a very alarming trend is emerging in Taiyuan – there are increasing instances of foreclosed homes, including million-dollar luxury homes. The reason is that homeowners have lost their jobs or their businesses have failed, leaving them unable to repay their loans. However, even after selling their houses, they still cannot repay the bank loans.
He stated that those who bought houses at the peak of housing prices in the past few years are now mostly in a state of insolvency, affecting millions of households and tens of millions of people nationwide, with “their wealth invested in real estate now gone up in smoke.”