BEIJING, January 17 (TMTPost)-- Official data showcased the downturn of China’s housing market deepened in the past year.

Credit：Visual China

Real estate investment by developers in China dropped 9.6% in 2023, compared with a slide of 10.0% for the previous year, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Wednesday. The annual figure suggested decline in investment in the property sector accelerated in the end of the year as the first eleven months saw a year-over-year (YoY) decrease of 9.4%.The annual property investment totaled RMB11.0913 trillion (US$1.56 trillion), and RMB8,382 billion of them came from residential buildings with a 9.3% YoY drop.  

Property projects under construction for the year 2023 amounted to around 8.38 billion square meters of floor space, with a 7.2% YoY decline, and the floor space of housing projects fell 7.7% to 5.9 billion square meters. The floor space of newly started real estate projects under construction tumbled 20.4% to 953.8 million square meters. Among them, housing projects accounted for about 72.6%, or 692.9 million square meters, with a YoY decrease of 20.9%. The floor space of buildings completed increased 17.0% YoY to 998.3 million square meters, and residential buildings out of them grew 17.2% to 724.3 million square meters.

China’s property sales also posted a high-single digit decline. During 2023, the floor space of commercial buildings sold stood at 1.12 billion square meters, down 8.5% YoY, of which the space of residential buildings sold fell 8.2%. The annual sales of commercial buildings slumped 6.5% YoY to around RMB11.7 billion, and sales of residential buildings recorded a 6.0% decrease. As of the end of 2023, the floor space of the commercial buildings for sale jumped 19.0% YoY to 673 million square meters, and the space of residential buildings dived 22.2%.

In 2023,  the funds for investment for real estate development enterprises amounted to RMB12.75 trillion, down 13.6% from the previous year. Among them, domestic loans decreased 9.9% YoY to RMB1.56 trillion; the utilized foreign investment plummeted 39.1% YoY to RMB4.7 billion; self-raised funds reached RMB4.2 trillion, down 19.1% YoY; deposits and advance receipts slid 11.9% to RMB4.3 trillion; individual mortgage reached RMB2.1 trillion, down 9.1% YoY.

In December, the national real estate climate index fell to 93.36, the lowest in these years after edging up 0.02 points in the previous month.

NBS also released home prices in the last month of 2023. New home prices in December dropped 0.4% YoY, with the largest yearly decline in nine months after a 0.2% fall in the previous month. Among 70 big and mid-sized cities, new home prices in four tire-one cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen edged down 0.1% YoY, compared with a rise of 0.3% in November; prices in tire-two cities grew 0.1% YoY, cooling from the increase of 0.2% in the previous month; prices in tire-three cities fell 1.8% YoY, up 0.2 points from growth of the previous month. Existing home prices in all the 70 cities accelerated their YoY decreases. Prices in tire-one cities declined 3.5% YoY, 0.6% points more than November; prices in tire-two and tire-three cities declined 4.0% and 4.2% respectively, compared with  the decrease of 3.6% and 3.9% in November.   

Throughout 2023, the real estate market recovery fell short of expectations, lingering in an adjustment phase. The top 100 developers in the industry suffered negative growth in their cumulative performance. Major real estate companies in China experienced remarkable changes in scale, performance, and market value in 2023.Almost 90% of Chinese real estate companies witnessed a contraction in market value in 2023, with only 23 out of the 158 listed companies showing an increase, according to statistics from Leju Holdings Limited. As part of latest effort to revive demand, Beijing and Shanghai, two largest housing markets in the country, relaxed their home purchase restrictions in mid-December, including by lowering the minimum down payment ratio for new homes and resale homes.