Floor space of completed buildings in China 1998-2023

In 2023, real estate developers in China completed 998.31 million square meters of floor space, representing a significant rise of more than 16 percent from the previous year. Housing completion figures in China have remained generally stable in the last decade, except for a drop in 2022 owing to the COVID-19 pandemic and structural challenges in the real estate industry.

The ups and downs of the Chinese real estate market

Following the marketization of the housing sector in the late 1990s, China's real estate industry has enjoyed more than two decades of prosperity. The output value of the sector multiplied several times, with home prices rising sharply across the country and some properties in urban centers such as Beijing and Shanghai being among the most expensive in the world. While being a pillar industry in the country’s economy, the real estate sector has also stimulated the development of many related industries, such as construction and financial services.

The property bubble and unfinished buildings

The continuous expansion of the housing market has created a considerable bubble in the sector, which is increasingly seen as unsustainable by prospective homebuyers in China. Many apartments, especially the tower blocks in small or medium-sized cities and towns remained unsold or left unoccupied, leading to financial turmoil for real estate developers. The failure of major market players such as China Evergrande and Country Garden resulted in more than a million unfinished apartments in China.