From assessments and estimates on distressed developers' project portfolios to macro-level questions about the market catalysts. Since 2012, Real Estate Foresight has been helping investors and developers with market research, project due diligence, strategy development and communications. Based in Hong Kong.
6 November, 2025
About this Newsletter: Get a quick but finer view of (still) one of the most important sectors in China, with the weekly chart and commentary from Real Estate Foresight (REF) - drawing on 13+ years of REF's research on China housing markets. …
30 October, 2025
About this Newsletter: Get a quick but finer view of (still) one of the most important sectors in China, with the weekly chart and commentary from Real Estate Foresight (REF) - drawing on 13+ years of REF's research on China housing markets. …
23 October, 2025
About this Newsletter: Get a quick but finer view of (still) one of the most important sectors in China, with the weekly chart and commentary from Real Estate Foresight (REF) - drawing on 13+ years of REF's research on China housing markets. …
16 October, 2025
About this Newsletter: Get a quick but finer view of (still) one of the most important sectors in China, with the weekly chart and commentary from Real Estate Foresight (REF) - drawing on 13+ years of REF's research on China housing markets. …
9 October, 2025
About China Property Signals: Get a quick but finer view of (still) one of the most important sectors in China, with the weekly chart and commentary from Real Estate Foresight (REF) - drawing on 13+ years of research on China housing markets. …
5 October, 2025
About China Property Signals: Get a quick but finer view of (still) one of the most important sectors in China, with the weekly chart and commentary from Real Estate Foresight (REF) - drawing on 13+ years of research on China housing markets. …
3 October, 2025
Here's our updated 'bubble chart animation', based on the official monthly NBS new home price growth indices for 12-month changes (X-axis) vs the cumulative change since the downturn started in mid-2021 (Y-axis) to the latest August 2025 data. …
11 March, 2025
The expectations (for new home sales) tend to be in the -5% to -10% range but vary widely from approximately -20% to +20%, compared to the actual -14% for 2024. …
25 February, 2025
We hosted a small group meeting in Singapore earlier today as part of Real Estate Foresight (REF)'s 13th annual China Property Outlook. …
3 February, 2025
As part of Real Estate Foresight (REF)'s 13th annual China Property Outlook, we invite anyone involved in or interested in China property sector to participate in this year's anonymous "Draw the Line" survey. …
9 October, 2024
On CGTN, Robert Ciemniak's commentary on the impact of the latest China stimulus measures on the housing market. …
17 August, 2024
Here's our 'bubble chart animation' from Real Estate Foresight (REF), showing the official NBS new home price growth indices month-on-month (X-axis) since the peak of mid-2021 against the cumulative change since June 2021 (the onset of the downturn; Y-axis, June 2021 = 100), to the latest July 2024 data released last week by NBS. …
2 August, 2024
Worth reading along with the official response/commentary (last 18 pages). …
16 April, 2024
A postcard from Xi'an: the strongest city in terms of the relative new home price growth since the onset of the property downturn in 2021, with a relatively smaller decline in volumes (second picture). …
23 January, 2024
As part of Real Estate Foresight (REF)'s 12th annual China Property Outlook, we invite anyone involved in or interested in China property sector to join this year's anonymous "Draw the Line" survey (draw on desktop/laptop, input the year-end figure on mobile). …
22 January, 2024
China Property: In the coming 2 weeks, as Real Estate Foresight (REF), we will host our 12th Annual China Property Outlook - a mix of private meetings, a webinar, and the annual forecast report for 2024 for the China housing markets. …
16 January, 2024
China Property: Today, we published the latest monthly China Property report by Real Estate Foresight (REF), going into the very details of all the key metrics of sales, prices, land, inventory, and macro factors, along with our forecasts for new home sales, new starts, and house prices. …
6 January, 2024
China has announced a 3-year action plan pushing for the "use of data as a factor of production". The plan was published by 17 government departments, incl. the National Data Administration (NDA). …
29 November, 2023
The schematic below is our attempt to organize the various data issues into a simple framework, with a couple of examples listed. …
20 October, 2023
The developer distress, higher level of uncertainty, and structural changes in China property markets make it more important, and yet more difficult, to ground investment decisions in solid data. …
13 September, 2023
Real Estate Foresight webinar next week on Sep 20 …
8 September, 2023
The latest animation from Real Estate Foresight illustrates what has happened to the China housing market since the onset of the downturn in mid-2021 …
12 June, 2023
The housing market indicators for April (Jan-Apr) showed further improvement, mostly “less negative” on a 12M Y/Y basis, but the indicators for May, including the higher-frequency weekly data (chart below), point to a slowdown in the recovery. …
18 April, 2023
A further improvement in new home sales figures in Jan-Mar... …
17 April, 2023
The March NBS data for house prices (new homes) in 70 major cities shows the non-weighted average Y/Y growth turned less negative -1.35% vs -1.86% in February, with M/M growth accelerating to +0.44% vs +0.30% in February. …
14 April, 2023
China Property: Data for Jan-Feb, and partial March and early April signals further improvement in the underlying housing market, but that also means not much new policy support for the sector. …
12 April, 2023
There has been some pickup in land acquisitions by major developers in certain cities. Guangzhou, Beijing, and Hangzhou attracted the most spending by major developers on land acquisitions for the Dec – Feb period. …
16 March, 2023
A further sign of a rebound in the housing markets …
15 March, 2023
How limited weekly data can help predict the direction of the national monthly new home sales... …
15 March, 2023
Today's macro-property data from NBS show improvements in new home sales …
10 March, 2023
Robert Ciemniak will join the Reorg's webinar - it will take place on March 28, open to signups now …
6 March, 2023
In the past weeks, we have seen more signs of improvements in the housing market metrics, with the various gauges of new home sales growth turning less negative... …
1 March, 2023
11 years of the history of China Housing in 30 seconds - with the animation of house price movements. …
24 February, 2023
Robert Ciemniak speaking at PERE Asia Summit 2023 in Singapore …
13 February, 2023
Here's our 2023 China housing forecast in key figures, for new home sales, new starts, and house prices. …
8 February, 2023
Earlier today, we hosted the 11th annual China Property Outlook seminar by Real Estate Foresight, back to the in-person format. …
31 January, 2023
We look in detail into new home sales, prices, inventory, land sales, and other metrics - for major developers, cities, and national figures. …
25 January, 2023
Looking forward to our 11th Annual China Property Outlook seminar in 2 weeks, an in-person event in Hong Kong, almost fully booked now. …
17 January, 2023
Today's data for China's national new home sales, new starts, land sales, and investment for Jan-Dec now gives a full picture of the 2022 performance vs prior years. …
16 January, 2023
China Property - this animation from Real Estate Foresight gives an intuitive feel for how the house prices (new home sales) across 70 major cities moved in each of the past 10 years. …
13 January, 2023
China Property: What will happen to the new home sales in 2023? For 11 years at Real Estate Foresight, we have been producing annual forecasts for the China housing markets. The 2023 view will be ready for clients in early February. …
9 January, 2023
Robert Ciemniak, Founder-CEO of Real Estate Foresight, will be speaking PERE Asia Summit next month where he will be giving a talk about the China housing markets. …
3 January, 2023
China Property: This is the first time in a while that we see a more pronounced improvement (less negative) in the weekly new home sales data for the select 19 cities. …
29 December, 2022
China Covid wave and recovery media talk: this chart is not about the reported or unreported numbers but rather the gauge of headline narratives in select mainstream Chinese media …
19 December, 2022
The purpose of the 'Profile' is to start with a quantitative picture of the developer's exposure by city and project and overlay that with city performance indicators, to get a rough idea of value distribution as well as the performance of cities where the developer has exposure. …
15 December, 2022
China Property: The official NBS data for November released today shows the national new home sales extended the decline by some measures and stayed …
13 December, 2022
Just published to clients our Quarterly Market Report on Data Centers in China by Real Estate Foresight / Robotic Online Intelligence. …
9 December, 2022
China Property: The drop in land sales (Jan-Oct 2022 vs equivalent in prior years) has been much more significant than the drop in new home sales …
7 December, 2022
China Property: The net increase of Pledged Supplementary Lending (PSL) in November was 368 billion RMB, which was a record-high level since 2015. …
6 December, 2022
China Property & Re-opening: As China eases the Covid restrictions, there is a lot of market action in response, especially regarding the outlook for the property market …
2 December, 2022
On China Property / broader macro. One of the biggest questions now is the way out of Zero-Covid. The chart below overlays our index of the frequency of mentions …
29 November, 2022
China Property: The intensity of 'supportive policy' narratives - as measured by our frequency index of certain keywords in China media headlines …
25 November, 2022
China Property: The latest signal of policy (selective/targeted) support for the sector - state-owned banks providing financing to developers. The latest list …
4 November, 2022
China Property: New home sales in September showed more signs of bottoming out, across multiple metrics: the national NBS figure, major cities, and major developers …
24 October, 2022
China Property - based on the latest September NBS data released today: The national new home sales in September declined slightly slower than in August (-26% vs -27% after rounding, for the year-to-date year-on-year growth) …
18 October, 2022
At Real Estate Foresight's China Property Breakfast this morning, a private small-group meeting in Hong Kong, where we discussed the latest market …
14 October, 2022
Robert on the China panel at the Debtwire Asia-Pacific Forum earlier today. Panel: China: More trouble on the horizon? …
12 October, 2022
China Property: This chart shows how the new home prices have evolved for 70 major cities (NBS data) since June 2021 …
11 October, 2022
China Property - New Home Sales: The higher-frequency weekly data for 16 major cities to the week ending October 9 suggests the market continues …
10 October, 2022
China Property/Macro: The intensity of new policy measures narratives - as measured by our frequency index of certain keywords in China media headlines (top chart below …
5 October, 2022
China Property: There are some remarkable patterns in the data on China's housing markets. Here (chart below) is an example of how the monthly 12M y/y growth rates …
4 October, 2022
China Property: What a difference a year makes - the two charts below illustrate the dramatic change in the 12-month growth metrics for contract sales (Y) and land acquisitions (X) for major developers. …
3 October, 2022
China Property: Slicing the data slightly differently can yield a more nuanced view of the market - the chart below shows the widely watched official national sales volume data (NBS), here for residential new homes, but split into half-years. …
1 October, 2022
China Property - this updated animation from Real Estate Foresight gives an intuitive feel for what's been happening to China house prices, by the official NBS house price growth measures for newly sold homes, across 70 major cities since mid-2021, as the developers' distress became more pronounced, to August 2022. …
30 September, 2022
China Property: The heatmap (first chart below) paints the picture of major developers (each tiny row) and their monthly (each tiny column) contract sales y/y growth in RMB terms since Jan 2019. Note the colour legend at the bottom. …
28 September, 2022
China Property: The big lockdown in Shanghai earlier this year showed clearly in the property data with the sales volumes …
27 September, 2022
China Property: Looking at sales volumes and house price growth metrics across major cities highlights the differences, with some cities standing out - in particular Xi'an and Ningbo on 12M price growth …
27 September, 2022
China Property: One of the biggest questions on China's housing markets is, "what's the true demand-supply balance?", or "how much excess supply is there, really?". It may be a bit tricky to separate the current downturn/crisis in the market, triggered by the significant policy tightening, from a longer-term view. …
20 September, 2022
China Property: From Real Estate Foresight's Macro-Property Data Update last week with the latest NBS data for August …
16 September, 2022
China Property: The August NBS data for house prices (new homes) in 70 major cities shows the non-weighted average …
15 September, 2022
The other day, Robert had a chance to present and join the discussion about the China housing markets at a session organized by the European Chamber in China …
12 September, 2022
From Real Estate Foresight’s latest quarterly piece on data centers, “the factories of the 21st century”, in China - more signs of a slowdown for most …
7 September, 2022
China property: The aggregate y/y metrics for China housing markets should start looking better / less negative as we progress into H2, given the very strong H1 in 2021 and very weak H2. …
2 September, 2022
Robert is looking forward to the panel discussion on China and the property sector - coming up at the Debtwire Forum Asia-Pacific on October 13 in Hong Kong. …
1 September, 2022
For investors trying to figure out how the distress among many Chinese property developers will play out, the local public sources and direct announcements from companies often carry valuable signals and insights …
24 August, 2022
China Property: The NBS national residential new home sales (GFA) data for Jan-Jun 2022 shows some improvement with a drop of -27% compared to the same period in 2021 …
22 August, 2022
China Property: our latest Weekly New Home Sales report by Real Estate Foresight shows further bottoming-out/improvement in the year-to-date year-on-year and 4-week year-on-year growth metrics - a slower pace of declines. …
15 August, 2022
As Chinese property developers navigate through the period of distress and tight financing, more transactions take place (like the latest sale of major urban renewal and tourism projects stakes by Kaisa in Shenzhen) …
16 June, 2022
China Property - from today's data update by Real Estate Foresight: The official May NBS data for house prices (new homes) in 70 major cities shows a further decline in the Y/Y …
10 June, 2022
Just published to clients our Quarterly Market Report on Data Centers in China by Real Estate Foresight / Robotic Online Intelligence. It covers the latest deals, projects, strategies …
8 June, 2022
Xi'an, Chengdu, and Hangzhou are some of the major cities that stand out in the latest monthly CityScreener(TM) by Real Estate Foresight …
27 May, 2022
China Property - this animation from Real Estate Foresight gives an intuitive feel for what's been happening to China house prices, by the official NBS house price growth measures for newly sold homes, across 70 major cities since mid-2021 …
25 May, 2022
Last week at the PERE Global Investor Forum San Francisco, on the panel Global Perspectives: Accessing Asia’s growth, with Christina Gaw from Gaw Capital, V Hari Krishna from CPPIB, and Joseph Fuqua from Sun Hung Kai. Some quick notes below. …
16 May, 2022
From today's Data Update by Real Estate Foresight on key China macro-property data for January-April 2022 …
18 April, 2022
From today's Data Update by Real Estate Foresight on key macro-property data for January-March 2022 …
15 April, 2022
New home prices in China stayed practically flat m/m in March, continuing to decelerate y/y, based on the official NBS data for 70 major cities …
8 April, 2022
Just published to clients our Quarterly Market Report on Data Centers in China by Real Estate Foresight / Robotic Online Intelligence. It covers the latest deals, projects, strategies, and policy developments to April 6 …
7 April, 2022
Yesterday, Robert had a chance to share his views on China housing markets in a 30-minute fireside chat at the AVCJ Private Credit Forum, with Ping Zhou, China Bureau Chief at Debtwire. …
28 March, 2022
China Property: In this 4-minute video, recorded at our 10th Annual China Property Outlook by Real Estate Foresight last week, I share observations about the land market …
25 March, 2022
Yesterday we hosted our 10th Annual China Property Outlook event (virtual this time) by Real Estate Foresight, with around 60 participants between Asia, Europe, and the US. The results of the annual "Draw The Line" forecasts are also in …
17 March, 2022
It will be the 10th year when we run Real Estate Foresight's annual China Property Outlook (CPO) event next week, this time in a virtual format. …
7 March, 2022
As Chinese developers under financial pressure negotiate with creditors, sell assets, restructure, and modify strategies, at Real Estate Foresight we've been supporting foreign investors with research on the China housing markets, focused on that sector since 2012. …
28 February, 2022
Real Estate Foresight published to clients on Feb 18 its 10th annual forecast for China housing markets, focused on the metrics for the sales volumes and house price growth. …
23 February, 2022
Looking forward to PERE Connect APAC Perspectives next week and moderating the panel on navigating the NPLs, bad debt, and defaults in China. …
10 February, 2022
China Property: Hangzhou stands out on multiple metrics in 2021 - a combined strong growth in sales volume, land sales, and fast inventory clearing. …
2 February, 2022
Happy New Year of the Tiger! …
31 January, 2022
China Property: putting 2021 annual figures in perspective. We just published to clients the Real Estate Foresight's monthly China Property report for January. …
20 January, 2022
China Property... and our first NFT - 10 Years in Perspective: Shenzhen remains the big 'winner' in terms of the cumulative 10-year house price growth by the official NBS house price growth metrics among 70 major cities from 2012 to 2021 …
3 January, 2022
5 Years of China in Western Media - here is our comparison of the most frequently mentioned words/phrases (combining some words that point to the very same themes) in the 50,000+ Western media headlines about China from a select set... …
31 December, 2021
When we published our forecast for the house price growth and volume growth in January 2021, off December 2020 data, we did very much expect a slowdown in 2021, though… …
30 December, 2021
Some signs of improvement in the land market as the ratio of completed (transacted) land auctions in the third batches of land sales in 21 major cities… …
15 December, 2021
Fresh from today's Data Updates by Real Estate Foresight. New NBS data for November shows house prices across 70 major cities continue the gradual… …
10 December, 2021
Just published to clients our Quarterly Market Report on Data Centers in China by Real Estate Foresight / Robotic Online Intelligence. It covers the latest deals, projects, strategies, and policy developments to December 9, and draws on the quarterly disclosures (esp. GDS, VNET, Chindata, Shanghai AtHub, Guangzhou Aofei, Dr Peng)... …
1 December, 2021
Yesterday, we published to clients the Real Estate Foresight's monthly China Property report for November. The charts below - what a difference in the land acquisitions by major developers in the past 3 months (chart on the right) vs the prior 3 months (chart on the left). …
22 October, 2021
Real Estate Foresight hosted a private China Property Breakfast for 30+ attendees on Oct 20 in Hong Kong …
20 October, 2021
September marks the first house price decline since 2015 on a sequential m/m basis for the simple average of the 70 major cities with the NBS house price indices. …
18 October, 2021
In today's Data Update from Real Estate Foresight, we look, as always, at a wide range of metrics and calculations, to help investors form a more comprehensive view. …
12 October, 2021
China Property: more telling signs of the housing markets' reaction to the Evergrande fallout and policy tightening, with a visible drop in the ratio of completed (transacted) land auctions in the second batches of land sales …
8 October, 2021
Robert Ciemniak, Founder-CEO of Real Estate Foresight, delivered an opening keynote speech at the Debtwire APAC Forum on Oct 6 in Hong Kong …
7 October, 2021
This animation demonstrates the policy tightening effects of recent years in mainland China property markets …
6 October, 2021
An interesting discussion at the GRI Club meeting - Robert Ciemniak joined Yaying Lin from China Resources Land and Luiz Vidal Eduardo Rodrigues from Belt & Road Service, moderated by Caroline Zurakowski from GRI. …
29 September, 2021
Robert Ciemniak will deliver a keynote speech at the annual Debtwire Asia-Pacific Forum at the Four Seasons Hotel in Hong Kong on October 6. …
25 September, 2021
Interesting to see how the frequency of appearance of Evergrande in the media headlines differs between the Western and Chinese media... …
21 September, 2021
The questions from the US come more in a form of 'LTCM or Lehman?', some bring up Minsky. In China, what form of bailout or takeover will be done, and layman concerns not fully seeing the dynamics of the Chinese markets. …
18 September, 2021
In this note, we cover the latest on China macro-property data in August. …
17 September, 2021
China housing is not one market, but it is not 600 entirely different markets either. There are some clear patterns in how some cities behave similarly in their direction of the house price growth, and some exhibit very unique behaviour. …
15 September, 2021
Real Estate Foresight's Data Update on macro-property data from NBS released today looks at a whole range of metrics to present a more comprehensive picture and highlights clear signs of declines in land sales on multiple measures, as well as the 3-month y/y volume growth turning negative. …
8 September, 2021
A refresh of our favourite Real Estate Foresight animation - putting all the China house price dynamics in perspective. …
7 September, 2021
The principles of the rigorous, deep and objective analysis now form the core philosophy of research... …
3 September, 2021
Reviewing our forecast for the trajectory of the house price growth in 2021 (the black line) that we presented at the annual event …
2 September, 2021
China Property: some cities like Jinhua and Foshan have been in recent months gaining their 'share' of the land acquisitions by 20 major developers we track, while Suzhou and Wenzhou saw their share declining. …
1 September, 2021
Just published to clients our Quarterly Market Report on Data Centers in China by Real Estate Foresight / Robotic Online Intelligence. …
1 September, 2021
Just published to clients the Real Estate Foresight's monthly China Property report for August. The postponed land auctions and the administrative reductions in maximum premiums for land (between 5 and 30 percentage points; in Shenzhen also …
20 August, 2021
Against the backdrop of new policy waves and restrictions on China tech, the underlying infrastructure of data centers sees more plans focused on sustained growth, energy savings, utilization, and geographic distribution. …
18 August, 2021
Over nearly a decade that we have been researching the China housing markets at Real Estate Foresight, we have seen so many twists and caveats to the interpretation of key data points. …
13 August, 2021
China Housing: today's NBS house price indices for July indicate a further gradual slowdown, reflecting the waves of policy tightening and administrative price controls. At the city level, Guangzhou still stays #1 on a year-on-year basis, but slowing down month-on-month. …
10 August, 2021
China property: more cities have now postponed or cancelled the second batches of land auctions, among the 22 cities under the new rules for land sales. …
6 August, 2021
China Housing: the latest wave of city-specific policy tightening for property markets clearly targets cities with strong house price growth - highlighted in orange on the chart below …
1 August, 2021
Just published to clients the Real Estate Foresight's monthly China Property report for July. Land sales (or land acquisitions by developers) is one …
1 August, 2021
China Housing: the 93 cities (with consistent historical data) from CREIS 100 cities house price data for July show in aggregate further slight deceleration in growth rates. …
28 July, 2021
China Property: a quick animation showing how Guangzhou, Chongqing and Yangzhou are the top cities in terms …
21 July, 2021
China Property - three highlights from today's NBS data for June, and Real Estate Foresight's Data Update reports …
14 July, 2021
China's Greater Bay Area (GBA): here's how the housing markets in the select cities in the GBA perform vs other major cities across China, when we look at the last 12 months, with the consistent data to May 2021. …
12 July, 2021
China Property: this Thursday, a new batch of macro (incl. quarterly GDP) and property data from China for June should start showing more comparable annual growth rates …
7 July, 2021
On CGTN Global Business the other day, commenting on the house price growth. …
1 July, 2021
China Property: More signs of tightening with the increases in the mortgage rates and restrictions to credit. …
26 June, 2021
Commenting on concerns about the underlying housing markets in China - Robert Ciemniak and Real Estate Foresight were quoted in Barron's article. …
24 June, 2021
Databasing unstructured information into a useful format is integral for businesses and there is room for efficiency gains there through automation …
22 June, 2021
This animation shows the 12M vs 1M price movements across 70 NBS cities since Jan 2020. …
15 June, 2021
The first of the three notes, sharing how we at Robotic Online Intelligence, a sister venture to Real Estate Foresight. approach the automation of research (market research/intelligence in the investment research context). …
14 June, 2021
The multiplayer game of investing in China’s residential market …
11 June, 2021
China Housing: Nantong, Dongguan, Guangzhou and Xuzhou stand out on a number of house price growth and sales volume metrics in the China CityScreener™ analysis for May 2021 by Real Estate Foresight, …
8 June, 2021
Just published to clients our Quarterly Market Report on Data Centers in China by Real Estate Foresight / Robotic Online Intelligence... …
31 May, 2021
An article Robert Ciemniak contributed to the latest Institutional Real Estate Asia Pacific May 2021 publication (may require subscription) …
24 May, 2021
Robert Ciemniak, Founder-CEO of Real Estate Foresight and Robotic Online Intelligence, participated. in Proptech panel. Very different use cases, though with some common underlying themes around automation of human tasks and extraction of signals from data of all types, incl. images/video, sensors, text. …
13 May, 2021
Moderating 'Real Estate Debt under the Microscope' at PERE Global Summit conference …
20 April, 2021
On the panel of the US-China Series' Alternative Data in China session …
4 February, 2021
Our 9th annual conference, this time online. …
26 January, 2020
On China housing markets: “The Forces Shaping China’s Property Sector” …
6 November, 2025
About this Newsletter: Get a quick but finer view of (still) one of the most important sectors in China, with the weekly chart and commentary from Real Estate Foresight (REF) - drawing on 13+ years of REF's research on China housing markets. …
30 October, 2025
About this Newsletter: Get a quick but finer view of (still) one of the most important sectors in China, with the weekly chart and commentary from Real Estate Foresight (REF) - drawing on 13+ years of REF's research on China housing markets. …
23 October, 2025
About this Newsletter: Get a quick but finer view of (still) one of the most important sectors in China, with the weekly chart and commentary from Real Estate Foresight (REF) - drawing on 13+ years of REF's research on China housing markets. …
16 October, 2025
About this Newsletter: Get a quick but finer view of (still) one of the most important sectors in China, with the weekly chart and commentary from Real Estate Foresight (REF) - drawing on 13+ years of REF's research on China housing markets. …
9 October, 2025
About China Property Signals: Get a quick but finer view of (still) one of the most important sectors in China, with the weekly chart and commentary from Real Estate Foresight (REF) - drawing on 13+ years of research on China housing markets. …
5 October, 2025
About China Property Signals: Get a quick but finer view of (still) one of the most important sectors in China, with the weekly chart and commentary from Real Estate Foresight (REF) - drawing on 13+ years of research on China housing markets. …
3 October, 2025
Here's our updated 'bubble chart animation', based on the official monthly NBS new home price growth indices for 12-month changes (X-axis) vs the cumulative change since the downturn started in mid-2021 (Y-axis) to the latest August 2025 data. …
11 March, 2025
The expectations (for new home sales) tend to be in the -5% to -10% range but vary widely from approximately -20% to +20%, compared to the actual -14% for 2024. …
25 February, 2025
We hosted a small group meeting in Singapore earlier today as part of Real Estate Foresight (REF)'s 13th annual China Property Outlook. …
3 February, 2025
As part of Real Estate Foresight (REF)'s 13th annual China Property Outlook, we invite anyone involved in or interested in China property sector to participate in this year's anonymous "Draw the Line" survey. …
9 October, 2024
On CGTN, Robert Ciemniak's commentary on the impact of the latest China stimulus measures on the housing market. …
17 August, 2024
Here's our 'bubble chart animation' from Real Estate Foresight (REF), showing the official NBS new home price growth indices month-on-month (X-axis) since the peak of mid-2021 against the cumulative change since June 2021 (the onset of the downturn; Y-axis, June 2021 = 100), to the latest July 2024 data released last week by NBS. …
2 August, 2024
Worth reading along with the official response/commentary (last 18 pages). …
16 April, 2024
A postcard from Xi'an: the strongest city in terms of the relative new home price growth since the onset of the property downturn in 2021, with a relatively smaller decline in volumes (second picture). …
23 January, 2024
As part of Real Estate Foresight (REF)'s 12th annual China Property Outlook, we invite anyone involved in or interested in China property sector to join this year's anonymous "Draw the Line" survey (draw on desktop/laptop, input the year-end figure on mobile). …
22 January, 2024
China Property: In the coming 2 weeks, as Real Estate Foresight (REF), we will host our 12th Annual China Property Outlook - a mix of private meetings, a webinar, and the annual forecast report for 2024 for the China housing markets. …
16 January, 2024
China Property: Today, we published the latest monthly China Property report by Real Estate Foresight (REF), going into the very details of all the key metrics of sales, prices, land, inventory, and macro factors, along with our forecasts for new home sales, new starts, and house prices. …
6 January, 2024
China has announced a 3-year action plan pushing for the "use of data as a factor of production". The plan was published by 17 government departments, incl. the National Data Administration (NDA). …
29 November, 2023
The schematic below is our attempt to organize the various data issues into a simple framework, with a couple of examples listed. …
20 October, 2023
The developer distress, higher level of uncertainty, and structural changes in China property markets make it more important, and yet more difficult, to ground investment decisions in solid data. …
13 September, 2023
Real Estate Foresight webinar next week on Sep 20 …
8 September, 2023
The latest animation from Real Estate Foresight illustrates what has happened to the China housing market since the onset of the downturn in mid-2021 …
12 June, 2023
The housing market indicators for April (Jan-Apr) showed further improvement, mostly “less negative” on a 12M Y/Y basis, but the indicators for May, including the higher-frequency weekly data (chart below), point to a slowdown in the recovery. …
18 April, 2023
A further improvement in new home sales figures in Jan-Mar... …
17 April, 2023
The March NBS data for house prices (new homes) in 70 major cities shows the non-weighted average Y/Y growth turned less negative -1.35% vs -1.86% in February, with M/M growth accelerating to +0.44% vs +0.30% in February. …
14 April, 2023
China Property: Data for Jan-Feb, and partial March and early April signals further improvement in the underlying housing market, but that also means not much new policy support for the sector. …
12 April, 2023
There has been some pickup in land acquisitions by major developers in certain cities. Guangzhou, Beijing, and Hangzhou attracted the most spending by major developers on land acquisitions for the Dec – Feb period. …
16 March, 2023
A further sign of a rebound in the housing markets …
15 March, 2023
How limited weekly data can help predict the direction of the national monthly new home sales... …
15 March, 2023
Today's macro-property data from NBS show improvements in new home sales …
10 March, 2023
Robert Ciemniak will join the Reorg's webinar - it will take place on March 28, open to signups now …
6 March, 2023
In the past weeks, we have seen more signs of improvements in the housing market metrics, with the various gauges of new home sales growth turning less negative... …
1 March, 2023
11 years of the history of China Housing in 30 seconds - with the animation of house price movements. …
24 February, 2023
Robert Ciemniak speaking at PERE Asia Summit 2023 in Singapore …
13 February, 2023
Here's our 2023 China housing forecast in key figures, for new home sales, new starts, and house prices. …
8 February, 2023
Earlier today, we hosted the 11th annual China Property Outlook seminar by Real Estate Foresight, back to the in-person format. …
31 January, 2023
We look in detail into new home sales, prices, inventory, land sales, and other metrics - for major developers, cities, and national figures. …
25 January, 2023
Looking forward to our 11th Annual China Property Outlook seminar in 2 weeks, an in-person event in Hong Kong, almost fully booked now. …
17 January, 2023
Today's data for China's national new home sales, new starts, land sales, and investment for Jan-Dec now gives a full picture of the 2022 performance vs prior years. …
16 January, 2023
China Property - this animation from Real Estate Foresight gives an intuitive feel for how the house prices (new home sales) across 70 major cities moved in each of the past 10 years. …
13 January, 2023
China Property: What will happen to the new home sales in 2023? For 11 years at Real Estate Foresight, we have been producing annual forecasts for the China housing markets. The 2023 view will be ready for clients in early February. …
9 January, 2023
Robert Ciemniak, Founder-CEO of Real Estate Foresight, will be speaking PERE Asia Summit next month where he will be giving a talk about the China housing markets. …
3 January, 2023
China Property: This is the first time in a while that we see a more pronounced improvement (less negative) in the weekly new home sales data for the select 19 cities. …
29 December, 2022
China Covid wave and recovery media talk: this chart is not about the reported or unreported numbers but rather the gauge of headline narratives in select mainstream Chinese media …
19 December, 2022
The purpose of the 'Profile' is to start with a quantitative picture of the developer's exposure by city and project and overlay that with city performance indicators, to get a rough idea of value distribution as well as the performance of cities where the developer has exposure. …
15 December, 2022
China Property: The official NBS data for November released today shows the national new home sales extended the decline by some measures and stayed …
13 December, 2022
Just published to clients our Quarterly Market Report on Data Centers in China by Real Estate Foresight / Robotic Online Intelligence. …
9 December, 2022
China Property: The drop in land sales (Jan-Oct 2022 vs equivalent in prior years) has been much more significant than the drop in new home sales …
7 December, 2022
China Property: The net increase of Pledged Supplementary Lending (PSL) in November was 368 billion RMB, which was a record-high level since 2015. …
6 December, 2022
China Property & Re-opening: As China eases the Covid restrictions, there is a lot of market action in response, especially regarding the outlook for the property market …
2 December, 2022
On China Property / broader macro. One of the biggest questions now is the way out of Zero-Covid. The chart below overlays our index of the frequency of mentions …
29 November, 2022
China Property: The intensity of 'supportive policy' narratives - as measured by our frequency index of certain keywords in China media headlines …
25 November, 2022
China Property: The latest signal of policy (selective/targeted) support for the sector - state-owned banks providing financing to developers. The latest list …
4 November, 2022
China Property: New home sales in September showed more signs of bottoming out, across multiple metrics: the national NBS figure, major cities, and major developers …
24 October, 2022
China Property - based on the latest September NBS data released today: The national new home sales in September declined slightly slower than in August (-26% vs -27% after rounding, for the year-to-date year-on-year growth) …
18 October, 2022
At Real Estate Foresight's China Property Breakfast this morning, a private small-group meeting in Hong Kong, where we discussed the latest market …
14 October, 2022
Robert on the China panel at the Debtwire Asia-Pacific Forum earlier today. Panel: China: More trouble on the horizon? …
12 October, 2022
China Property: This chart shows how the new home prices have evolved for 70 major cities (NBS data) since June 2021 …
11 October, 2022
China Property - New Home Sales: The higher-frequency weekly data for 16 major cities to the week ending October 9 suggests the market continues …
10 October, 2022
China Property/Macro: The intensity of new policy measures narratives - as measured by our frequency index of certain keywords in China media headlines (top chart below …
5 October, 2022
China Property: There are some remarkable patterns in the data on China's housing markets. Here (chart below) is an example of how the monthly 12M y/y growth rates …
4 October, 2022
China Property: What a difference a year makes - the two charts below illustrate the dramatic change in the 12-month growth metrics for contract sales (Y) and land acquisitions (X) for major developers. …
3 October, 2022
China Property: Slicing the data slightly differently can yield a more nuanced view of the market - the chart below shows the widely watched official national sales volume data (NBS), here for residential new homes, but split into half-years. …
1 October, 2022
China Property - this updated animation from Real Estate Foresight gives an intuitive feel for what's been happening to China house prices, by the official NBS house price growth measures for newly sold homes, across 70 major cities since mid-2021, as the developers' distress became more pronounced, to August 2022. …
30 September, 2022
China Property: The heatmap (first chart below) paints the picture of major developers (each tiny row) and their monthly (each tiny column) contract sales y/y growth in RMB terms since Jan 2019. Note the colour legend at the bottom. …
28 September, 2022
China Property: The big lockdown in Shanghai earlier this year showed clearly in the property data with the sales volumes …
27 September, 2022
China Property: Looking at sales volumes and house price growth metrics across major cities highlights the differences, with some cities standing out - in particular Xi'an and Ningbo on 12M price growth …
27 September, 2022
China Property: One of the biggest questions on China's housing markets is, "what's the true demand-supply balance?", or "how much excess supply is there, really?". It may be a bit tricky to separate the current downturn/crisis in the market, triggered by the significant policy tightening, from a longer-term view. …
20 September, 2022
China Property: From Real Estate Foresight's Macro-Property Data Update last week with the latest NBS data for August …
16 September, 2022
China Property: The August NBS data for house prices (new homes) in 70 major cities shows the non-weighted average …
15 September, 2022
The other day, Robert had a chance to present and join the discussion about the China housing markets at a session organized by the European Chamber in China …
12 September, 2022
From Real Estate Foresight’s latest quarterly piece on data centers, “the factories of the 21st century”, in China - more signs of a slowdown for most …
7 September, 2022
China property: The aggregate y/y metrics for China housing markets should start looking better / less negative as we progress into H2, given the very strong H1 in 2021 and very weak H2. …
2 September, 2022
Robert is looking forward to the panel discussion on China and the property sector - coming up at the Debtwire Forum Asia-Pacific on October 13 in Hong Kong. …
1 September, 2022
For investors trying to figure out how the distress among many Chinese property developers will play out, the local public sources and direct announcements from companies often carry valuable signals and insights …
24 August, 2022
China Property: The NBS national residential new home sales (GFA) data for Jan-Jun 2022 shows some improvement with a drop of -27% compared to the same period in 2021 …
22 August, 2022
China Property: our latest Weekly New Home Sales report by Real Estate Foresight shows further bottoming-out/improvement in the year-to-date year-on-year and 4-week year-on-year growth metrics - a slower pace of declines. …
15 August, 2022
As Chinese property developers navigate through the period of distress and tight financing, more transactions take place (like the latest sale of major urban renewal and tourism projects stakes by Kaisa in Shenzhen) …
16 June, 2022
China Property - from today's data update by Real Estate Foresight: The official May NBS data for house prices (new homes) in 70 major cities shows a further decline in the Y/Y …
10 June, 2022
Just published to clients our Quarterly Market Report on Data Centers in China by Real Estate Foresight / Robotic Online Intelligence. It covers the latest deals, projects, strategies …
8 June, 2022
Xi'an, Chengdu, and Hangzhou are some of the major cities that stand out in the latest monthly CityScreener(TM) by Real Estate Foresight …
27 May, 2022
China Property - this animation from Real Estate Foresight gives an intuitive feel for what's been happening to China house prices, by the official NBS house price growth measures for newly sold homes, across 70 major cities since mid-2021 …
25 May, 2022
Last week at the PERE Global Investor Forum San Francisco, on the panel Global Perspectives: Accessing Asia’s growth, with Christina Gaw from Gaw Capital, V Hari Krishna from CPPIB, and Joseph Fuqua from Sun Hung Kai. Some quick notes below. …
16 May, 2022
From today's Data Update by Real Estate Foresight on key China macro-property data for January-April 2022 …
18 April, 2022
From today's Data Update by Real Estate Foresight on key macro-property data for January-March 2022 …
15 April, 2022
New home prices in China stayed practically flat m/m in March, continuing to decelerate y/y, based on the official NBS data for 70 major cities …
8 April, 2022
Just published to clients our Quarterly Market Report on Data Centers in China by Real Estate Foresight / Robotic Online Intelligence. It covers the latest deals, projects, strategies, and policy developments to April 6 …
7 April, 2022
Yesterday, Robert had a chance to share his views on China housing markets in a 30-minute fireside chat at the AVCJ Private Credit Forum, with Ping Zhou, China Bureau Chief at Debtwire. …
28 March, 2022
China Property: In this 4-minute video, recorded at our 10th Annual China Property Outlook by Real Estate Foresight last week, I share observations about the land market …
25 March, 2022
Yesterday we hosted our 10th Annual China Property Outlook event (virtual this time) by Real Estate Foresight, with around 60 participants between Asia, Europe, and the US. The results of the annual "Draw The Line" forecasts are also in …
17 March, 2022
It will be the 10th year when we run Real Estate Foresight's annual China Property Outlook (CPO) event next week, this time in a virtual format. …
7 March, 2022
As Chinese developers under financial pressure negotiate with creditors, sell assets, restructure, and modify strategies, at Real Estate Foresight we've been supporting foreign investors with research on the China housing markets, focused on that sector since 2012. …
28 February, 2022
Real Estate Foresight published to clients on Feb 18 its 10th annual forecast for China housing markets, focused on the metrics for the sales volumes and house price growth. …
23 February, 2022
Looking forward to PERE Connect APAC Perspectives next week and moderating the panel on navigating the NPLs, bad debt, and defaults in China. …
10 February, 2022
China Property: Hangzhou stands out on multiple metrics in 2021 - a combined strong growth in sales volume, land sales, and fast inventory clearing. …
2 February, 2022
Happy New Year of the Tiger! …
31 January, 2022
China Property: putting 2021 annual figures in perspective. We just published to clients the Real Estate Foresight's monthly China Property report for January. …
20 January, 2022
China Property... and our first NFT - 10 Years in Perspective: Shenzhen remains the big 'winner' in terms of the cumulative 10-year house price growth by the official NBS house price growth metrics among 70 major cities from 2012 to 2021 …
3 January, 2022
5 Years of China in Western Media - here is our comparison of the most frequently mentioned words/phrases (combining some words that point to the very same themes) in the 50,000+ Western media headlines about China from a select set... …
31 December, 2021
When we published our forecast for the house price growth and volume growth in January 2021, off December 2020 data, we did very much expect a slowdown in 2021, though… …
30 December, 2021
Some signs of improvement in the land market as the ratio of completed (transacted) land auctions in the third batches of land sales in 21 major cities… …
15 December, 2021
Fresh from today's Data Updates by Real Estate Foresight. New NBS data for November shows house prices across 70 major cities continue the gradual… …
10 December, 2021
Just published to clients our Quarterly Market Report on Data Centers in China by Real Estate Foresight / Robotic Online Intelligence. It covers the latest deals, projects, strategies, and policy developments to December 9, and draws on the quarterly disclosures (esp. GDS, VNET, Chindata, Shanghai AtHub, Guangzhou Aofei, Dr Peng)... …
1 December, 2021
Yesterday, we published to clients the Real Estate Foresight's monthly China Property report for November. The charts below - what a difference in the land acquisitions by major developers in the past 3 months (chart on the right) vs the prior 3 months (chart on the left). …
22 October, 2021
Real Estate Foresight hosted a private China Property Breakfast for 30+ attendees on Oct 20 in Hong Kong …
20 October, 2021
September marks the first house price decline since 2015 on a sequential m/m basis for the simple average of the 70 major cities with the NBS house price indices. …
18 October, 2021
In today's Data Update from Real Estate Foresight, we look, as always, at a wide range of metrics and calculations, to help investors form a more comprehensive view. …
12 October, 2021
China Property: more telling signs of the housing markets' reaction to the Evergrande fallout and policy tightening, with a visible drop in the ratio of completed (transacted) land auctions in the second batches of land sales …
8 October, 2021
Robert Ciemniak, Founder-CEO of Real Estate Foresight, delivered an opening keynote speech at the Debtwire APAC Forum on Oct 6 in Hong Kong …
7 October, 2021
This animation demonstrates the policy tightening effects of recent years in mainland China property markets …
6 October, 2021
An interesting discussion at the GRI Club meeting - Robert Ciemniak joined Yaying Lin from China Resources Land and Luiz Vidal Eduardo Rodrigues from Belt & Road Service, moderated by Caroline Zurakowski from GRI. …
29 September, 2021
Robert Ciemniak will deliver a keynote speech at the annual Debtwire Asia-Pacific Forum at the Four Seasons Hotel in Hong Kong on October 6. …
25 September, 2021
Interesting to see how the frequency of appearance of Evergrande in the media headlines differs between the Western and Chinese media... …
21 September, 2021
The questions from the US come more in a form of 'LTCM or Lehman?', some bring up Minsky. In China, what form of bailout or takeover will be done, and layman concerns not fully seeing the dynamics of the Chinese markets. …
18 September, 2021
In this note, we cover the latest on China macro-property data in August. …
17 September, 2021
China housing is not one market, but it is not 600 entirely different markets either. There are some clear patterns in how some cities behave similarly in their direction of the house price growth, and some exhibit very unique behaviour. …
15 September, 2021
Real Estate Foresight's Data Update on macro-property data from NBS released today looks at a whole range of metrics to present a more comprehensive picture and highlights clear signs of declines in land sales on multiple measures, as well as the 3-month y/y volume growth turning negative. …
8 September, 2021
A refresh of our favourite Real Estate Foresight animation - putting all the China house price dynamics in perspective. …
7 September, 2021
The principles of the rigorous, deep and objective analysis now form the core philosophy of research... …
3 September, 2021
Reviewing our forecast for the trajectory of the house price growth in 2021 (the black line) that we presented at the annual event …
2 September, 2021
China Property: some cities like Jinhua and Foshan have been in recent months gaining their 'share' of the land acquisitions by 20 major developers we track, while Suzhou and Wenzhou saw their share declining. …
1 September, 2021
Just published to clients our Quarterly Market Report on Data Centers in China by Real Estate Foresight / Robotic Online Intelligence. …
1 September, 2021
Just published to clients the Real Estate Foresight's monthly China Property report for August. The postponed land auctions and the administrative reductions in maximum premiums for land (between 5 and 30 percentage points; in Shenzhen also …
20 August, 2021
Against the backdrop of new policy waves and restrictions on China tech, the underlying infrastructure of data centers sees more plans focused on sustained growth, energy savings, utilization, and geographic distribution. …
18 August, 2021
Over nearly a decade that we have been researching the China housing markets at Real Estate Foresight, we have seen so many twists and caveats to the interpretation of key data points. …
13 August, 2021
China Housing: today's NBS house price indices for July indicate a further gradual slowdown, reflecting the waves of policy tightening and administrative price controls. At the city level, Guangzhou still stays #1 on a year-on-year basis, but slowing down month-on-month. …
10 August, 2021
China property: more cities have now postponed or cancelled the second batches of land auctions, among the 22 cities under the new rules for land sales. …
6 August, 2021
China Housing: the latest wave of city-specific policy tightening for property markets clearly targets cities with strong house price growth - highlighted in orange on the chart below …
1 August, 2021
Just published to clients the Real Estate Foresight's monthly China Property report for July. Land sales (or land acquisitions by developers) is one …
1 August, 2021
China Housing: the 93 cities (with consistent historical data) from CREIS 100 cities house price data for July show in aggregate further slight deceleration in growth rates. …
28 July, 2021
China Property: a quick animation showing how Guangzhou, Chongqing and Yangzhou are the top cities in terms …
21 July, 2021
China Property - three highlights from today's NBS data for June, and Real Estate Foresight's Data Update reports …
14 July, 2021
China's Greater Bay Area (GBA): here's how the housing markets in the select cities in the GBA perform vs other major cities across China, when we look at the last 12 months, with the consistent data to May 2021. …
12 July, 2021
China Property: this Thursday, a new batch of macro (incl. quarterly GDP) and property data from China for June should start showing more comparable annual growth rates …
7 July, 2021
On CGTN Global Business the other day, commenting on the house price growth. …
1 July, 2021
China Property: More signs of tightening with the increases in the mortgage rates and restrictions to credit. …
26 June, 2021
Commenting on concerns about the underlying housing markets in China - Robert Ciemniak and Real Estate Foresight were quoted in Barron's article. …
24 June, 2021
Databasing unstructured information into a useful format is integral for businesses and there is room for efficiency gains there through automation …
22 June, 2021
This animation shows the 12M vs 1M price movements across 70 NBS cities since Jan 2020. …
15 June, 2021
The first of the three notes, sharing how we at Robotic Online Intelligence, a sister venture to Real Estate Foresight. approach the automation of research (market research/intelligence in the investment research context). …
14 June, 2021
The multiplayer game of investing in China’s residential market …
11 June, 2021
China Housing: Nantong, Dongguan, Guangzhou and Xuzhou stand out on a number of house price growth and sales volume metrics in the China CityScreener™ analysis for May 2021 by Real Estate Foresight, …
8 June, 2021
Just published to clients our Quarterly Market Report on Data Centers in China by Real Estate Foresight / Robotic Online Intelligence... …
31 May, 2021
An article Robert Ciemniak contributed to the latest Institutional Real Estate Asia Pacific May 2021 publication (may require subscription) …
24 May, 2021
Robert Ciemniak, Founder-CEO of Real Estate Foresight and Robotic Online Intelligence, participated. in Proptech panel. Very different use cases, though with some common underlying themes around automation of human tasks and extraction of signals from data of all types, incl. images/video, sensors, text. …
13 May, 2021
Moderating 'Real Estate Debt under the Microscope' at PERE Global Summit conference …
20 April, 2021
On the panel of the US-China Series' Alternative Data in China session …
4 February, 2021
Our 9th annual conference, this time online. …
26 January, 2020
On China housing markets: “The Forces Shaping China’s Property Sector” …
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