Managing debt defaults prioritized in housing

China will adopt a multipronged strategy to stabilize the property market this year, with a focus on preventing debt default risks through whitelist financing mechanisms, promoting quality home construction and revitalizing old housing resources through urban renewal efforts, experts said.

The strategy, detailed in the Government Work Report delivered earlier this month, will help halt the decline in home prices and restore market confidence, they added.

"China's real estate sector has undergone more than four years of adjustments, with transaction volumes gradually returning to a more rational range recently," said Li Yujia, chief researcher at the residential policy research center of the Guangdong Planning Institute.

After continuous efforts to ensure delivery of presold homes and resolve debt risks for property developers, the sector's risks have now been mitigated, Li said.

Going forward, further leveraging the whitelist mechanism — a government-backed program to direct financial support to eligible, high-quality residential projects — will be prioritized as an important measure to stabilize the real estate market, Li added.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development said that in October, loan approvals under whitelist mechanisms had exceeded 7 trillion yuan ($1.017 billion).

Analysts said that alongside stabilizing the financing environment, efforts to control new supply and reduce housing inventory are expected to further improve the supply-demand dynamics in China's real estate market.

The China Index Academy said residential land sales in 300 cities nationwide during the first two months declined about 30 percent year-on-year.

"Particularly in areas with higher inventory levels, new land supply may be further reduced, improving the supply-demand relationship at the source," said Chen Wenjing, director of policy research at the academy.

Zhai Meiqing, president of Heung Kong Group, said that China should dynamically adjust the pace of land supply based on an 18-month inventory clearance cycle, suspending new residential land releases for cities with clearance periods exceeding 24 months.

While stabilizing the market remains a priority, China's real estate sector is accelerating its transformation toward high-quality development, with this year's renewed emphasis on "quality housing" expected to drive implementation of relevant standards at a faster pace.

Yao Jinbo, chairman and CEO of life services platform 58.com, said,"Building quality housing is an inevitable choice to meet people's needs, drive industry transformation and unlock domestic demand potential."

While advancing construction standards for quality housing, authorities should establish a more comprehensive information disclosure system. "By improving information transparency, we can guide the industry toward quality-oriented development," he added.

Monitoring from the 58 Anjuke Research Institute shows that the sought-after projects in core urban areas during 2025 — developments selling out on launch day — shared core characteristics aligned with the "quality housing" framework: safety, comfort, green features and smart technology.

Beyond these attributes, these projects demonstrated continuous product refinement, integrating third-party services including eldercare, childcare and household management, said the institute.

"This will drive coordinated upgrading of the entire industry chain — new materials, new equipment and new techniques," Yao said.

Urban renewal has also emerged as a critical pillar of the new real estate development model, industry watchers said.

Guo Xiangyu, research director of the Research Center for Real Estate Finance at Tsinghua University's PBC School of Finance, said that urban renewal serves as the core pathway for systematically revitalizing existing assets.

"Whether they are urban villages, old residential communities, existing commercial housing stock, idle land or inefficient commercial properties, all can achieve spatial function and economic value reconfiguration through renewal mechanisms," Guo said.

Local governments across China have significantly accelerated urban renewal paces, with numerous regions successively releasing detailed project plans and implementation roadmaps.

Beijing recently published its 2026 first-batch urban renewal project list, comprising 1,321 projects with planned investment of 104.95 billion yuan for the initial phase alone. Both project count and investment scale stand at multiyear highs.

Guo said that looking ahead, the industry is poised to bid farewell to the old development model characterized by high turnover, high leverage and high debt, with future growth expected to emphasize the fundamental residential nature of housing through strengthened risk prevention, enhanced housing quality and high-quality urban renewal.