Official data: In January, the number of cities with a month-on-month increase in new housing rose to 24, and popular metropolitan areas are more likely to rebound.

On February 19, the National Bureau of Statistics released the data on the changes in the sales prices of commercial residential buildings in 70 large and medium-sized cities in January 2025. The data shows that in January, among the 70 large and medium-sized cities, there were 24 cities where the sales prices of new commercial residential buildings rose month-on-month, an increase of 1 compared with the previous month; there were 7 cities where the sales prices of second-hand residential buildings rose month-on-month, a decrease of 2 compared with the previous month.

The cities with a month-on-month increase in housing prices are mainly concentrated in the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, the Chengdu-Chongqing Metropolitan Area, and key second-tier cities.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics

Specifically, first-tier cities did not lead the increase at the beginning of the year. In January, the sales prices of new commercial residential buildings in first-tier cities rose by 0.1% month-on-month, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the previous month. Among them, Beijing decreased by 0.4%, Guangzhou remained the same, and Shanghai and Shenzhen increased by 0.6% and 0.2% respectively.

Instead, Chengdu and Nanjing were the cities with the highest month-on-month increase in new house prices, both with an increase of 0.7%, followed by Shanghai and Ningbo, with a month-on-month increase of 0.6%. Wuhan and Wuxi followed closely.

It is worth noting that compared with last year, the number of cities with a month-on-month increase in new house prices began to appear in a "patchy" manner.

For example, Haikou and Sanya in Hainan rose simultaneously; Chengdu and Chongqing in the western region both rose month-on-month; Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Ningbo, and Wuxi in the Yangtze River Delta rose simultaneously month-on-month; Shenzhen and Huizhou in the Pearl River Delta rose month-on-month, and Guangzhou remained the same.

In contrast to new houses, the second-hand housing market is still in a trend of "exchanging price for quantity". Except for Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuxi, Xiamen, Qingdao, Shenzhen, Chengdu, and Ningbo, the prices in other cities all decreased.

In January, the sales prices of second-hand residential buildings in first-tier cities rose by 0.1% month-on-month, a decrease of 0.2 percentage points from the previous month. Among them, Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen increased by 0.1%, 0.4% and 0.4% respectively, and Guangzhou decreased by 0.2%.

The second-hand residential buildings in second-tier cities decreased by 0.3% month-on-month, the same decrease as the previous month.

Compared with the same period last year, the prices of second-hand houses in 70 cities did not increase. Among the four first-tier cities, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen decreased by 3.8%, 2.3%, 10.0% and 6.1% respectively.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics

Zhang Bo, the dean of the 58 Anjuke Research Institute, believes that the hot cities in the first and second tiers have steadily entered the stage of "stopping the decline and stabilizing". The prices of new and second-hand houses in first-tier cities continue to rise month-on-month. In particular, the rise in Shanghai and Shenzhen is accompanied by a high volume of second-hand house transactions, indicating that the market has completed the bottoming process. Since June 2023, the month-on-month price of new houses in second-tier cities has turned positive for the first time, a change worthy of attention. In particular, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Chengdu, and Wuhan have a stronger recovery momentum and are the leading cities in this round of recovery.

However, for the second-hand housing market, according to the online data of Anjuke, in January 2025, the number of second-hand houses listed in 100 cities reached 2.298 million, an increase of 19.0% compared with the same period last year. The abundant supply of houses provides more choices for homebuyers.

Zhang Dawei, the chief analyst of Centaline Property, said that according to the data, the housing prices in 70 large cities have undergone obvious changes since October. The housing prices continued to stop falling from November to December, and in January, there were only 42 and 60 cities where the prices of new and second-hand houses decreased respectively. It is expected that the market differentiation will continue this year. The first-tier cities have the highest popularity, but the increase has slowed down. The first-tier cities have experienced a continuous increase for four months, but with the rise in prices, homebuyers have begun to show differentiation, and some homebuyers have once again started to wait and see, affecting the housing price increase in first-tier cities in January to start to slow down. The market still needs more favorable policies to continuously stabilize the market.