China Property Signals (#34): Mid-2026 Macro-Property Picture for New Homes Market in 2 Charts

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 two charts below paint the macro-property picture for China property development market (new homes) in mid-2026, using the official NBS data for January-June 2026.

1.In absolute terms: new home prices, sales, new starts and residential investment all continue to decline. Here we use the annual price growth and the 12M rolling metrics.

2. In terms of the growth rates: over the past few years, the pace of annual declines has stayed in a certain range, but after 'improving' to mid/late 2025, the sales, new starts and investment figures have again deteriorated.

This macro-property 'persistent decline' picture for the development market for new homes is not inconsistent with more positive signs emerging in select cities (a small percentage of the total), and the performance of the secondary markets, as the structure of the property sector fundamentally changes.