According to the Financial Associated Press on January 2 (Reporter Li Jie), at the end of 2024, the sales of the top 100 real estate companies will show a tail-end market trend.

According to CRIC data, in December 2024, the top 100 real estate companies achieved a sales turnover of 451.39 billion yuan, a month-on-month increase of 24.2%, and year-on-year unchanged.

"New home sales in December showed strong growth both month-on-month and year-on-year, although the year-on-year growth rate was not as high as the peak in October of this year, the transaction scale in December has reached a new high for the year. The effect of policy-driven market year-on-year growth has lasted for three months, and while short-term sentiment has cooled somewhat, in the long-term dimension, the market still maintains high trading enthusiasm, which may reflect that the sales market has completed a phase of bottom construction," said Analyst Zhou Yating from Western Securities.

In terms of cumulative performance, data monitored by the China Index Academy shows that from January to December 2024, the total sales of the top 100 real estate companies amounted to 4,354.73 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 30.6%, with the rate of decline narrowing by 2.3 percentage points compared to the previous 11 months.

"In 2024, China's real estate market continues to undergo a bottoming adjustment, with the market basically running at a low level in the first three quarters. Thanks to a series of bullish new policies at the end of September, sales of companies rebounded in the fourth quarter, and the sales turnover of the top 100 real estate companies turned positive year-on-year in the fourth quarter, increasing slightly by 0.2%, significantly outperforming the sales performance in the first three quarters," said an Analyst from CRIC.

It is noteworthy that in 2024, there are only 11 billion property companies with total sales exceeding 100 billion, a decrease of 5 compared to the same period in 2023; there are 86 hundred billion property companies, which is a decrease of 30 compared to the same period last year. Among them, the top ten ranks have seen a change, with Zhuhai Huafa Properties replacing LONGFOR GROUP to become the industry’s tenth in sales.

According to CRIC, the number of all-inclusive billion property companies has further decreased to 11, returning to the level of 2016, while the sales turnover threshold for the TOP 100 real estate companies has decreased by 31.6% to 7.55 billion yuan.

Specifically, in 2024, Poly Developments and Holdings Group ranks first in the industry with a sales volume of 323 billion yuan, followed closely by China Overseas Land & Investment at 310.6 billion yuan, with Greentown at third with 276.85 billion yuan. CHINA RES LAND rises to fourth with a sales volume of 261.1 billion yuan, while Vanke drops to fifth with 244.68 billion yuan.

The sixth to tenth places in the industry are held by China Merchants Shekou Industrial Zone Holdings, Jianfa Property, YUEXIU PROPERTY, Hangzhou Binjiang Real Estate Group, and Zhuhai Huafa Properties, with sales volumes of 219.3 billion yuan, 133.5 billion yuan, 114.7 billion yuan, 111.6 billion yuan, and 105.4 billion yuan respectively.

"From a structural perspective, real estate companies focusing on first- and second-tier cities have significantly better sales recovery than those operating in third- and fourth-tier cities," Zhou Yating said.

She stated that the sales of real estate companies that focus heavily on first- and second-tier cities from January to December 2024 would decrease by 23% year-on-year, while those with balanced layouts would decrease by 34.2%, and those concentrated in third- and fourth-tier cities would decrease by 50.2%. The cumulative sales volume in first- and second-tier cities is about 27.2 percentage points lower in decline than those operating in third- and fourth-tier cities, with the difference expanding by 3.3 percentage points from January to November.

"The year-end sales uplift for real estate companies mainly comes from core cities. The market is bullish on the continuation of high-capacity city activity, which improves overall sales," Zhou Yating said.

In terms of land acquisition, data from the China Index Academy shows that in 2024, the total land acquisition by the top 100 enterprises amounts to 928 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 29.7%, with the decline narrowing by 1.8 percentage points compared to the previous 11 months.

In terms of newly added value, China Overseas Land & Investment, CHINA RES LAND, and Poly Developments and Holdings Group rank as the top three in the industry. In 2024, China Overseas Land & Investment leads the list with an additional value of 177.7 billion yuan, followed by CHINA RES LAND with 166.5 billion yuan, while Poly Developments and Holdings Group's additional value reaches 129.3 billion yuan, placing third.

"Since October 2024, the land auction market in core cities has maintained a certain level of activity. In December, first-tier cities like Peking, Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Guangzhou consecutively offered several high-value land plots, most of which were acquired by leading central state-owned enterprises, reducing the year-on-year decline in the total acquisition amount of the TOP 100 enterprises," said Liu Shui, the Director of Corporate Research at the China Index Academy.

At the policy level, in December 2024, the Central Economic Work Conference proposed to "stabilize the Property market", emphasizing the need to "continuously work to stabilize the downturn in the Real Estate market", setting the tone for the Property market in 2025 and releasing a more determined stabilizing tone.

Analysts pointed out that looking ahead to 2025, the increase in policies is expected to drive recovery of expectations, but the Real Estate market still faces many challenges to recovery.

"Predicting the future market, we believe that due to the impact of the Spring Festival holiday, a month-on-month decline in January-February 2025 is a high probability event. However, based on policy support and the current weak recovery in transaction inertia, a small spring market in March is expected to continue. Considering the low base in 2024, there is still a possibility of year-on-year positive growth in the first quarter of 2025." said the aforementioned Analyst from Ke Rui.