In 2025, the sales of newly built commercial housing reached 8.39 trillion yuan.
On January 19th, the National Bureau of Statistics released the "Basic Situation of the National Real Estate Market in 2025" and the "Changes in the Sales Prices of Commercial Residential Buildings in 70 Large and Medium - Sized Cities in December 2025". The data shows that in 2025, the sales area of newly - built commercial housing reached 881.01 million square meters, a decrease of 8.7% compared with the previous year; the sales volume of newly - built commercial housing was 8.3937 trillion yuan, a decrease of 12.6%. In December, the sales price of newly - built commercial residential buildings in first - tier cities decreased by 1.7% year - on - year, and the decline rate widened by 0.5 percentage points compared with the previous month. The sales prices of newly - built commercial residential buildings in second - and third - tier cities decreased by 2.5% and 3.7% year - on - year respectively. In December, the sales price of second - hand residential buildings in first - tier cities decreased by 7.0% year - on - year, and the sales prices of second - hand residential buildings in second - and third - tier cities both decreased by 6.0% year - on - year. The market continues to show a bottom - building trend.
01 The inventory of commercial housing continues to decline
In 2025, the national real estate development investment was 8.2788 trillion yuan, a decrease of 17.2% compared with the previous year. Among them, the investment in residential housing was 6.3514 trillion yuan, a decrease of 16.3%.
On the sales side, in 2025, the sales area of newly - built commercial housing was 881.01 million square meters, a decrease of 8.7% compared with the previous year. Among them, the sales area of residential housing decreased by 9.2% to 732.99 million square meters. The sales volume of newly - built commercial housing was 8.3937 trillion yuan, a decrease of 12.6%. Among them, the sales volume of residential housing decreased by 13.0%.
Source: National Bureau of Statistics
As an important forward - looking indicator, in 2025, the newly - started construction area of buildings was 587.7 million square meters, a decrease of 20.4%. Among them, the newly - started construction area of residential housing was 429.84 million square meters, a decrease of 19.8%. This means that the area of new houses available for sale in the future will continue to decrease, which has also become one of the main reasons for the decline in the inventory of the real estate market.
At the end of 2025, the unsold area of commercial housing was 766.32 million square meters, an increase of 1.6% compared with the end of the previous year, and a decrease of 1.0 percentage point compared with the end of November. Among them, the unsold area of residential housing increased by 2.8% year - on - year, but it decreased by 29.38 million square meters from the inventory peak at the end of February this year to about 400 million square meters.
Currently, the sum of the inventory area and the newly - started construction area of the new - house market is only slightly higher than the annual sales area.
02 The signal of stopping the decline and warming up in the first - tier market is strengthening
In terms of prices, according to the data from the statistics bureau, in December, the sales price of newly - built commercial residential buildings in first - tier cities decreased by 0.3% month - on - month, and the decline rate narrowed by 0.1 percentage point compared with the previous month. Among them, the price in Shanghai increased by 0.2%, while the prices in Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen decreased by 0.4%, 0.6%, and 0.5% respectively.
The sales price of newly - built commercial residential buildings in second - tier cities decreased by 0.4% month - on - month, and the decline rate widened by 0.1 percentage point. The sales price of newly - built commercial residential buildings in third - tier cities decreased by 0.4% month - on - month, with the same decline rate as the previous month.
Source: National Bureau of Statistics
In the second - hand housing market, in December, the sales price of second - hand residential buildings in first - tier cities decreased by 0.9% month - on - month, and the decline rate narrowed by 0.2 percentage point compared with the previous month. Among them, the prices in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen decreased by 1.3%, 0.6%, 1.0%, and 0.6% respectively. The sales prices of second - hand residential buildings in second - and third - tier cities both decreased by 0.7% month - on - month, and the decline rates both widened by 0.1 percentage point.
Zhang Bo, the dean of the 58 Anjuke Research Institute, analyzed that the signal of stopping the decline and warming up in the first - tier market is strengthening. The month - on - month decline rate of the sales price of newly - built commercial residential buildings in first - tier cities narrowed by 0.1 percentage point. Among them, the price of new houses in Shanghai increased by 0.2% month - on - month and soared by 4.8% year - on - year, making it the only city among first - tier cities to achieve both year - on - year and month - on - month growth. The hot sales of large - sized apartments over 144 square meters confirm the strong resilience of the improvement - oriented demand. The second - hand housing market also shows signs of improvement. The month - on - month decline rate of the sales price of second - hand residential buildings in first - tier cities narrowed by 0.2 percentage point. The month - on - month decline rate of second - hand housing prices in Shanghai narrowed to 0.6%, and the wait - and - see sentiment on the demand side is gradually dissipating.
It is worth noting that the signal of stopping the decline in the market has emerged in January this year. Zhang Bo said that recently, national policies have been introduced intensively. Policies such as the reduction of loan interest rates and tax incentives have directly lowered the threshold for home purchases. Both the provident fund loan interest rate and the commercial loan interest rate have reached historical lows. According to the online data of Anjuke, the policies have a significant pulling effect on users. In the first two weeks of January, the number of micro - chats (online text communication between users and real - estate agents) actively initiated by users increased by 1.8% week - on - week and increased significantly by 8.6% year - on - year. The number of users initiating micro - chats increased by 1.3% week - on - week and 7.5% year - on - year. The willingness of users to leave their phone numbers continues to increase. The number of users leaving their phone numbers increased by 1.0% week - on - week and 7.1% year - on - year. Overall, the situation of users shifting from online browsing to active consultation is increasing. Especially, the consultation volume of policy - supported groups such as multi - child families and new urban residents has increased more prominently, indicating that the market wait - and - see sentiment is gradually alleviating, the bargaining space for buyers is narrowing, and the market pricing is becoming more rational.