Anchoring "Stability" and "Goodness" to Activate New Momentum in the Real Estate Market

“Focus on Stabilizing the Real Estate Market.” This year’s Government Work Report clearly outlines the development direction for the real estate industry through 2026.

Representatives, committee members, and industry insiders interviewed by reporters said that the policy guidance for 2026 is clear: China’s real estate will accelerate the construction of a new development model by coordinating supply and demand, aiming for steady progress within stability, prioritizing quality, and exploring new development paths that stimulate the housing market’s new momentum.

New Changes Bring More Imagination Space

This year’s Government Work Report proposes implementing city-specific policies to control growth, reduce inventory, optimize supply, and explore multiple channels to activate existing commercial housing, encouraging the purchase of existing properties mainly for affordable housing and other purposes. Compared to previous years, the report adds a key word: “etc.”

“This ‘etc.’ is weighty, and the policy direction is clear,” said Zhai Meiqing, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and Chairman of Xiangjiang Group. “The ‘etc.’ expands housing supply from solely for guaranteed purposes to diverse social needs, giving local governments greater autonomy and operational space. For example, properties can be used for affordable housing, or flexibly converted into resettlement housing, talent housing, staff dormitories, or youth apartments; this not only effectively reduces inventory and activates existing assets but also quickly addresses social welfare gaps, achieving multiple benefits such as stabilizing the market, benefiting residents, and preventing risks.”

Yan Yuejin, Deputy Director of the E-House Research Institute in Shanghai, also believes that the simple “etc.” is essentially an open-ended “questionnaire” left for local governments and operators to fill out, opening up imagination for trillions of yuan worth of existing assets.

Yan Yuejin said that for local governments, “storage and acquisition” is no longer just about simply buying houses but involves complex resource allocation. They must abandon the past “one-size-fits-all” approach of allocating properties as public rental or guaranteed housing and instead tailor solutions based on local demographics (aging rate, youth inflow), industrial needs (manufacturing workers, e-commerce practitioners), and development stages—matching needs with specific projects and production with housing. For industry organizations, the era of operating existing assets is arriving. As the uses of storage diversify, future market demand for asset management capabilities will explode. Whether it’s designing age-friendly features for elderly care facilities or community services for operator apartments, these will become key indicators of core competitiveness for real estate companies or operators.

“Only by further expanding the uses of existing commercial housing and activating resources through multiple channels can we achieve a ‘steady’ real estate market,” said Zhai Meiqing. “Stabilizing the real estate market is crucial for rebuilding consumer confidence. When housing prices stabilize, people’s ‘pocketbooks’ are secure, and consumer confidence will return.”

This may also be the deeper meaning behind the country’s renewed emphasis on “destocking”—using the activation of existing assets as a starting point, balancing market stability and social welfare, and promoting high-quality development of the real estate industry.

Orderly Promotion of “Good Housing” Construction

The Government Work Report proposes orderly promotion of the construction of safe, comfortable, green, and smart “good houses.” Building “good houses” is not only the direction of industry transformation but also an expectation for improving people’s livelihoods.

2025 is regarded as the “Year of Good Housing” in China’s real estate sector, marking the first time it was included in the Government Work Report. Since then, standards have been established, and the quality of Chinese housing has further improved, with many “good housing” projects launched nationwide. In 2026, “good houses” are again emphasized, along with initiatives to upgrade housing quality and property management services, outlining specific action plans for high-quality industry development.

Wang Qiong, Deputy General Manager of China State Construction Engineering’s China Construction Smart Land, said that from the basic guarantee of “housing security,” to the pursuit of “quality living,” and now to the aspiration of “happy living,” each step in China’s housing development reflects people’s expectations for a better life. The construction of “good houses” points clearly toward high-quality transformation of the real estate industry, shifting from “scale expansion” to “quality improvement.”

Zhang Dawei, Chief Analyst at Centaline Property, said that the Government Work Report not only emphasizes building “good houses” but also deploys actions to improve housing quality and property services, marking a shift from merely solving “whether” to focusing on “how good.” He believes that promoting “good houses” directly reflects the high-quality development during the 14th Five-Year Plan, continuing the focus on improving living quality while emphasizing safety, green features, and smart technologies to meet the needs of improved living conditions.

Strengthening the Foundation for Higher-Level Housing Security

The Government Work Report states that efforts will be made to deepen the development of new real estate models through the construction of foundational systems and supporting policies. Meanwhile, the draft outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan explicitly calls for accelerating the construction of new development models, improving multi-entity supply, multi-channel guarantees, and a rental-purchase balance, to achieve higher-level housing security. These high-level, coherent strategic deployments provide important guidance for the high-quality development of real estate during the 14th Five-Year Plan period.

“Currently, China’s real estate industry has formed a comprehensive policy framework around six major directions: city-specific policies, activating existing assets, ensuring supply, improving quality, risk prevention, and model transformation,” said Zhang Dawei. “This marks China’s real estate industry’s departure from the old cycle of high leverage, high turnover, and high prices, moving toward a new stage of stable operation, optimized supply, strengthened guarantees, quality enhancement, and risk control.”

Zhai Meiqing said this signifies China’s housing industry moving from “having a place to live” to “living well, stably, and securely.” She suggested that the next step should be to activate existing assets, stimulate the replacement cycle, increase storage and transformation of existing properties, vigorously support residents’ “trade-in” of old for new homes, and unblock circulation bottlenecks. It is also important to accurately release reasonable housing demands, especially rigid and improved housing needs, further optimize credit policies, reduce taxes and fees, and lower residents’ homeownership costs. Improving housing quality and boosting market confidence should focus on building “good houses,” continuously strengthen work to ensure delivery, improve property disclosure mechanisms, and enhance buyers’ sense of security. Strengthening government-enterprise collaboration, stabilizing market expectations, and facilitating the circulation of existing and new housing will help maintain a stable real estate market, upgrade consumption, and inject new momentum into economic growth.