China Property Signals (#41): August National-Level NBS Property Data Shows The New Homes Sector Continues To Shrink

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 data released on Tuesday by NBS shows that national residential new-home sales 12M Y/Y decline extended further in August, to -14.4% from -14.1% in July in GFA terms and to -17.1% from -17.0% in RMB terms.

On the YTD Y/Y basis, sales GFA turned more negative to -13.0% in August from -12.8% in July.

New starts (national residential GFA) 12M Y/Y turned more negative to -24.4% from -23.4%.

The same data in an annual view (full years for prior years and Jan-Aug 2026 vs Jan-Aug 2025) - so far, partial improvement in 2025 ("less negative" sales and new starts) has reversed:

That's from REF's Data Update "NBS Macro-Property Data Update" on Sep 15. To discover more about our work on China property, please message Robert Ciemniak directly or visit https://www.realestateforesight.com