On October 18, the National Bureau of Statistics reported key figures regarding China’s real estate market from January to September 2024.
**Real Estate Development Investment Overview**
From January to September, real estate development investment reached 78,680 billion yuan, reflecting a year-on-year decrease of 10.1% (on a comparable basis). Of this, residential investment totaled 59,701 billion yuan, down by 10.5%.
During the same period, the construction area for real estate enterprises was 715,968 million square meters, marking a 12.2% decline from the previous year. Residential construction accounted for 501,051 million square meters, showing a 12.7% decrease. The newly started construction area was 56,051 million square meters, down 22.2%, with residential new starts at 40,745 million square meters, which is a 22.4% drop. The completion area stood at 36,816 million square meters, down 24.4%, including 26,871 million square meters of residential completions, a decrease of 23.9%.
**Sales of New Commercial Housing and Inventory Levels**
In terms of new commercial housing sales, the area sold from January to September was 70,284 million square meters, down 17.1%, with residential sales seeing a decline of 19.2%. The total sales value for new commercial housing was 68,880 billion yuan, reflecting a decrease of 22.7%, with residential sales value dropping by 24.0%. By the end of September, the inventory of unsold commercial housing amounted to 73,177 million square meters, which is a 13.4% increase year-on-year, with unsold residential properties up by 20.8%.
**Funding Situation for Real Estate Development Enterprises**
For the January to September period, funds available to real estate development enterprises totaled 78,898 billion yuan, a decrease of 20.0% compared to the previous year. This included domestic loans of 11,466 billion yuan (down 6.2%), foreign investment of 2.9 billion yuan (down 19.9%), self-raised funds amounting to 28,680 billion yuan (a 9.1% drop), and advances and prepayments totaling 23,593 billion yuan (down 29.8%). Additionally, personal mortgage loans saw a significant decline to 11,079 billion yuan, down 34.9%.
**Real Estate Development Climate Index**
In September, the real estate development climate index, known as the “National Housing Prosperity Index,” stood at 92.41.