In December 2024, the National Housing and Urban Rural Development Conference proposed five key tasks, including continuously promoting the stabilization of the real estate market, building a new model for real estate development, vigorously implementing urban renewal, creating an upgraded version of "Made in China", and constructing safe, comfortable, green, and smart houses. It pointed out how the real estate industry should do in 2025. In 2025, from the content of the local two sessions, the above policies have become high-frequency words in the work reports of local governments, and have been emphasized for layout and implementation. As the opening of the National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference approaches, what changes have been made in the focus of real estate policies this year? How to promote the real estate market to 'stop falling and stabilize'? How to promote urban renewal? How to promote the collection and storage of existing land and commercial housing? China Net Finance interviewed several industry experts on this matter. 'Stopping the decline and stabilizing the real estate market' is a key task. In early 2025, local two sessions will be held intensively, and the relevant statements on real estate in the work reports of local governments will continue the tone of the Central Economic Work Conference. 'Promoting the real estate market to stop the decline and stabilize' is one of the key tasks of various regions this year. The Beijing Municipal Government Work Report for 2025 points out the need to better meet the housing needs of urban and rural residents. Continuously optimizing real estate policies and continuously promoting the stabilization and improvement of the real estate market. Guangdong Province pointed out that it will continue to vigorously promote the real estate market to stop falling and stabilize. Optimizing real estate policies based on urban conditions, reasonably controlling the supply of new real estate land, revitalizing existing land and commercial housing, promoting the disposal of existing commercial housing, improving the housing system that combines renting and purchasing, fully unleashing the potential for rigid and improved housing demand, and promoting the construction of a new model for real estate development. Overall, promoting urban renewal, intensifying the renovation of urban villages and dilapidated houses, ensuring the delivery of housing, building 'good houses', revitalizing existing land and commercial housing, and promoting the disposal of existing commercial housing are the main contents Chen Wenjing, Director of Policy Research at Zhongzhi Research Institute, said in an interview with China Net Finance reporters. It is worth mentioning that real estate related statements in provinces and cities such as Liaoning and Chongqing are more positive. Liaoning Province stated that it will promote the stabilization and recovery of the real estate market. Policies will be implemented according to the city, and both the supply and demand sides will work together to strictly control the increment, optimize the stock, improve the quality, and coordinate the promotion of guaranteed delivery of houses, treatment of unfinished projects, and destocking; Chongqing emphasizes the need to fully promote the stabilization and recovery of the real estate and construction industries. However, the government work reports of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Fujian Province, Shanxi Province and other places still focus on "stopping the decline and stabilizing". Many regions have been more proactive in their statements, which also reflects their determination to promote the recovery of the real estate market Chen Wenjing said. Yan Yuejin, Vice President of Shanghai E-house Real Estate Research Institute, also pointed out that the statements made by the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference on real estate are expected to continue the wording of the Central Economic Work Conference at the end of last year. From the perspective of policy deployment, the regulatory authorities will continue to stimulate the role of real estate in boosting domestic demand and stabilizing investment. On the supply side, policies are being strengthened to accelerate urban renewal and promote the renovation of urban villages and dilapidated houses. This is an important measure to stabilize real estate investment and release housing demand. It has also become a high-frequency term in local two sessions, reflecting its importance in local work in 2025. The first executive meeting of the State Council in 2025 made arrangements for "studying and promoting urban renewal work". The meeting pointed out that urban renewal is related to the improvement of urban appearance and living quality, and is an important lever for expanding domestic demand. We should support innovation and exploration tailored to local conditions, establish and improve sustainable urban renewal mechanisms, and promote high-quality urban development. In addition, on January 20th, a video conference on the deployment of national urban renewal work was held in Beijing. It can be seen that the central government attaches great importance to and supports urban renewal Chen Wenjing expects that supporting policies related to urban renewal, urban villages, and renovation of dilapidated houses will continue to be improved and implemented by 2025, such as financial guarantees and tax incentives. In the 2025 local government work report, 27 provinces and cities emphasized the implementation of urban renewal work, and 24 cities emphasized the promotion of urban village and dilapidated house renovation. Multiple provinces and cities have set specific goals, with Beijing implementing comprehensive renovation of 500 old residential areas, managing 1100 alleys and alleys, and upgrading 40 old factories. Shandong has announced the promotion of district renewal in 120 areas and the renovation of 137000 old residential areas. Sichuan Province is the largest in scale, with the goal of carrying out urban renewal and safety resilience improvement actions, renovating more than 4000 old residential areas, 30000 sets of dangerous old houses in cities, 100000 households in urban villages, and aiming to renovate 100000 households. From the work reports of multiple local governments, preventing and resolving risks in key areas remains one of the key tasks this year. 23 provinces emphasized in their government work report that they will continue to do a good job in ensuring the delivery of housing by 2025. Shanxi Province pointed out that "one enterprise, one policy" will meet the reasonable financing needs of real estate enterprises and fully complete the task of ensuring the delivery of housing. Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region stated that "the special action for ensuring the delivery of housing has achieved a 100% delivery rate for existing projects within the year. In Chen Wenjing's view, since the fourth quarter of 2024, driven by policy optimization, the real estate market has experienced a phase of recovery. However, it will take time for the market to truly stop falling and stabilize, and short-term financial pressure on real estate companies remains. According to the State Administration for Financial Regulation, the "whitelist" mechanism has supported the delivery of 14 million housing construction units. In addition, the collection and storage of existing land and commercial housing are accelerating in multiple cities. On February 18th, Beijing took the lead in restarting the issuance of special bonds for land storage, raising funds for land storage projects with a scale of over 10 billion yuan. The funds will mainly be used for 25 projects, including the first level development project of environmental improvement land in the green area of Jiugong Town and the first level development project of land in the eastern area of Liangxiang University City in Fangshan District. On February 23rd, Guangdong Province took the lead in issuing special bond funds for the acquisition of existing land, becoming the first in the country. According to the Guangdong Provincial Department of Finance, the total issuance amount of Guangdong Provincial Government Special Bonds (Phase 8-9) in 2025 is 307.1859 billion yuan, of which about 30.4 billion yuan will be used to recover idle stock land, covering 19 cities and 86 projects in Guangdong Province. The acquisition of existing land through special bonds is an important measure to stabilize the supply side in 2025. The implementation of the collection and storage work in first tier cities has set a model for the subsequent implementation of collection and storage in various regions Wen Bin, Chief Economist of Minsheng Bank, stated. Wen Bin candidly stated that the two tasks of managing existing land and ensuring the delivery of houses provide a chain support for the disposal of idle land in the front-end, the collection and storage of land in the back-end, and the delivery of commercial housing, providing important guarantees for achieving the primary goal of stabilizing the real estate market in 2025. On the demand side, boosting consumption and promoting the implementation of real estate policies. On February 19th, the National Bureau of Statistics disclosed the sales prices of commercial residential properties in January 2025. New houses in first tier cities have risen for two consecutive months, while new house prices in second tier cities have increased month on month, marking the first increase since June 2023. In the view of Guan Rongxue, a senior analyst at Linping Residential Big Data Research Institute, the trend of "stopping the decline and stabilizing the price side" is still present in 2025, especially for new housing prices. The number of cities experiencing price increases continues to increase, and the overall month on month decline continues to narrow. Prices in core first and second tier cities are generally rising steadily. The expected improvement in second-hand housing prices has slightly stagnated in the past two months, with no sustained increase in the number of cities experiencing price increases. In the short term, the "price for quantity" market is still dominant in the second-hand housing market. Guan Rongxue expects that with the continuous implementation of favorable policies and market self-regulation, the positive recovery of trading volume may gradually guide the stable recovery of prices. It is worth mentioning that at the beginning of the new year, many regions have introduced a new round of policies to stabilize the real estate market, including increasing support for housing provident fund purchases, promoting the purchase of shared property rights and exchanging old for new housing, etc., to promote the stable and healthy development of the real estate market. On the demand side, the introduction of housing provident fund policies is the most intensive, and at least more than ten cities have optimized and adjusted their housing provident fund policies. Chengdu has extended the maturity date of housing provident fund loans; Xiamen supports the cancellation of registered residence or work certificate requirements for withdrawing provident fund for purchasing houses in other places in Fujian Province; Dalian has lowered the down payment ratio for personal housing provident fund loans to 20% and increased the maximum loan amount for families with multiple children; Changzhou City can apply for a housing provident fund loan to purchase foreclosed houses. In addition, many places also launch Spring Festival promotional activities during the Spring Festival period. Several real estate projects in Guangzhou have launched a New Year warm-up event, including discounted rooms, limited time discounts, home appliance gift packages, property management fee gift packages, and other promotional measures; Most real estate projects in Beijing combine the theme of the Chinese New Year and carry out a series of special activities, mainly through discounted rooms and discounts. On the one hand, various regions have planned or implemented the spirit of the National People's Congress in advance, proposing multiple innovative policies from the perspective of boosting consumption Wen Bin analyzed and pointed out that "on the other hand, from the perspective of the correlation between housing prices and commodity prices, the prices of newly-built commodity housing and second-hand residential properties have converged with the trends of CPI and PPI in the same month, which also indicates that expanding domestic demand, boosting consumption, and stabilizing housing prices are closely related." Building "good houses" is one of the five key tasks deployed by the National Housing and Urban Rural Development Conference in 2025, an important component of building a new model for real estate development, and an important link in releasing demand for improvement. Looking at various regions, 19 provinces and cities have clearly proposed to build "good houses", and many have expressed their intention to build higher quality projects to meet the high-quality living needs of the masses. Jilin Province has clearly stated to "vigorously promote the construction of more than 10" good house "demonstration projects", and Shaanxi Province has clearly stated to "improve and upgrade housing construction standards, increase the supply of" good houses ", and meet the multi-level housing needs". Looking ahead to 2025, Chen Wenjing expects that the central and local governments may accelerate the implementation of supporting measures around promoting urban renewal, transforming urban villages, ensuring the delivery of housing, and building "good houses" to accelerate the release of housing demand; The supporting policies for the acquisition of idle land by special bond funds are expected to continue to be improved, providing more effective supply for the market and continuously repairing the market expectations of enterprises and homebuyers. From the performance of the real estate market, due to the low transaction volume of new houses in the first quarter of last year compared to the same period in recent years, under the influence of a low base, Chen Wenjing expects that the overall year-on-year transaction volume of new houses in the first quarter of this year will remain stable; The short-term second-hand housing market is still active, and transactions may maintain a certain scale driven by the "price for volume" policy. After the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, regulatory authorities and local governments will introduce more policies to support the real estate market, driving the recovery of market activity in March. The "Xiaoyangchun" market in core cities is worth looking forward to. (New Society)