Reuters Poll: China Home Prices Expected to Fall 3.4% This Year, Property Investment Decline Widens to 20%
Nashnova编辑部
A Reuters survey of 11 institutions projects China's new-home prices will drop 3.4% in 2026, while property investment decline widens sharply to 20% — the multi-year downturn has not bottomed out.
Prices dip less — so why is the outlook worse?
The survey forecasts a 3.4% decline in new-home prices for 2026, slightly narrower than the 3.5% drop predicted in May.
But the two pillars underneath are crumbling faster: property investment is now expected to shrink 20% (May forecast: 12%), and floor-area sales to fall 10% (previously 8.3%).
This means → the price line looks marginally better, but the money and demand holding the sector up are draining faster — prices simply haven't caught up yet.
Why was the 2027 recovery call reversed?
In May, institutions expected a modest +0.3% price rebound in 2027. The latest survey flips that to a −0.3% decline.
In plain terms = three months ago the market thought "next year might be the bottom." That faint optimism is now gone.
This reflects a broad shift in how long institutions believe this cycle will last — there is still no consensus on where the floor is.
Top-tier cities are improving — can that lift the nation?
S&P Global's Ren Yingxue notes first-tier cities show phased improvement, but price divergence within those cities remains sharp depending on location and housing quality — it is not a broad-based upturn.
She warns that the spillover from first-tier recoveries to lower-tier cities is limited: lower-tier home prices are still searching for a bottom.
This means → good news in Beijing or Shanghai is more "local warming" than a signal the national market has turned.
Where is government policy focused?
Eurasia Group's Wang Dan says Beijing has limited interest in engineering a full property-cycle reversal — the priority is absorbing excess housing inventory.
New residential projects will be sharply curtailed. In plain terms = the policy goal is not "make the market rise again" but "clear the unsold stock first."
Current priorities center on financial-risk containment, completing stalled projects, destocking, and gradually restoring buyer confidence — a broad-based stabilization remains uncertain.
市场有风险，内容仅供研究参考，不构成投资建议。