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.

The latest official China macro-property data (NBS; released yesterday, March 16) for Jan-Feb 2026 show further declines in new home sales (GFA) - in line with our expectations based on the higher-frequency weekly metrics.

Jan-Feb data is released as a combined figure in March, which avoids data distortions due to the changes in the timing of the Chinese New Year each year.

Among the many possible calculations on the same underlying data, we think - currently, for the broader view - it's best to look at the 12-month rolling figures (vs prior 12 months):

By this measure, new home sales are -11% vs -9.2% for the full 2025.

The pace of decline in new starts improved slightly, and the residential real estate investment extended the decline a bit further.

Looking closer at the new home sales:

Short-term metrics were slightly less negative vs December, but overall - no signs of improvement in the new home sales market.

Interestingly, there was only a very marginal revision to the prior-year data (impacting the growth figures), compared to larger revisions in the past 2 years.

These are the extracts from REF's Data Update published to clients yesterday: