Transitioning toward stable growth, quality

With the economy widely tipped to recover in the second half, and property market expectations improving, demand will get released at an accelerated rate, especially in major Chinese cities with larger population inflows, more rapid income growth and stronger demand potential, said Lian of the Zhixin Investment Research Institute.

"A turning point is highly likely to arrive in the third quarter, which will make the whole-year property development investment positive with small single-digit growth."

Home transactions in big cities will lead the expected rebound, and further drive prices up. The fourth quarter is the most promising season for the real estate market, Lian said.

The policy environment is expected to continue the trend of the first half, and the sector will play a more important role in supporting the nation's economy, Xie of CBRE said.

Real estate contributed about 6.8 percent to China's GDP in 2021, according to a report in China Real Estate Business. Taken together, all the related sectors along the industrial chain are believed to have contributed 24.5 percent.

The property industrial chain is comparatively long, and it can actively drive related sectors of manufacturing and consumption along, Xie said.

"A realty rebound in the second half appears certain now. The only question is: How big will it be?" said Chen Sheng of the China Real Estate Data Academy.

Full-year transaction volume may recover in terms of home consumption and the land market, and stabilize around last year's peak level, he said.

Some 1.79 billion square meters of floor area of commercial housing was sold in 2021, up 1.9 percent year-on-year. In terms of value, commercial property sales rose 4.8 percent to 18.2 trillion yuan last year, according to the NBS.

Some 175 Chinese cities made over 600 adjustments to their property-related policies, which is unusual, said experts at E-House (China) Enterprise Holdings Ltd.

Lian of the Zhixin institute said additional measures may be in the pipeline to further boost the real estate market recovery. "The April 29 meeting of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee showed the central government's resolve to ensure the property sector's stable and healthy development. That goal can be achieved only by ensuring rational homebuying demand and effective market supply."

Agreed Xie of CBRE. "A wide range of measures to match local conditions of different cities, and attaching equal importance to rental market, mean that we are in the midst of a medium- to long-term transition to high-quality development."

He further said that in the past few years, there have been a series of changes in the real estate sector, which showed the sector is placing increasing emphasis on high-quality development, stable growth, optimized structure of real estate businesses, improved operational efficiency, enhanced quality, and green and sustainable development.