Watching the 'Whitelist' Figures

On September 22, Li Yunze, Director of the National Financial Regulatory Administration, stated at a State Council press conference (as per local news) that the approved loan amount for real estate 'whitelist' projects had exceeded RMB 7 trillion, supporting the construction and delivery of nearly 20 million housing units. This compares to RMB 6.7 trillion as of May 7.

We have been tracking the various disclosures about the 'whitelist' loan approvals since the beginning, and the chart below illustrates how the approvals ramped up in 2024, but levelled off most recently.

This funding is a major factor in addressing the 'sold-not-completed' problem, as per the policy premise, prioritising the delivery of pre-sold homes to homebuyers.

What is less clear, though, is what portion of those approved loans has actually been disbursed.

Based on local disclosures and media reports at the city/province level, we do have a few indications: in Shenzhen, out of RMB 549 billion approved, RMB 404 billion (74%) was disbursed as of the end of June 2025. For Guangdong province, RMB 1,090 billion and RMB 830 billion (76%), respectively. For Tianjin at the end of May 2025, the figures were RMB 107 billion and RMB 66 billion (62%).

Major developers, including those in financial difficulties and restructuring, are indeed prioritising the delivery.

For example, Country Garden (as per the company's disclosure) delivered over 380,000 units for the full year 2024, and over 600,000 units in 2023 and 700,000 units in 2022, while the contract sales (attributable) dropped to around RMB 47 billion for 2024, RMB 174 billion for 2023, compared to RMB 571 billion in 2020 at the peak.

The focus on the delivery of the 'sold-not-completed' homes also shows in the increase in the inventory of 'completed-not-sold' units, which we touched on in the previous post.