About this Newsletter: Get a quick but more granular view of (still) one of the most important sectors in China, with the weekly chart and commentary from Real Estate Foresight (REF) - drawing on 14+ years of REF's research on China housing markets.

From our recent CityScreener analysis, looking at city-level metrics on an annual basis.

For new home price growth by the official NBS measures, Hangzhou has consistently ranked in the Top-10 over the last 5 years (as of December each year) across 70 major cities. Shanghai, however, stands out as #1 in the past 2 years and in the Top-5 spots in each of the past 4 years:

Except for a few cities, the broader pattern in the new home price changes year-on-year remains the same - here with the latest monthly data from January 2023 to January 2026:

Major data caveats reminder: new home price growth indices from NBS may be subject to composition shifts, policy influence on price floors/caps for new projects, and other city-specific factors.

We look at the NBS city-level price growth indices for directional insight and relative performance. The actual 'feel-on-the-ground' percentage point declines in the current downturn, on a like-for-like basis, are larger.