With the alternation of old and new modes, real estate is shifting toward the “cornerstone of ensuring people’s livelihood stability,” entering a decisive breakthrough phase for transformation and upgrading | 2026 Outlook Annual Forum

Questioning AI · Why has the real estate policy shifted towards high-quality development during the “14th Five-Year Plan”?

Our newspaper (chinatimes.net.cn) reporter Li Beibei Shanghai report

Over the past year, the bottom of the real estate market policy and the market bottom have become gradually clear, and phased achievements have been made in ensuring housing delivery. Building high-quality housing has become a industry consensus. As the starting year of the “14th Five-Year Plan” in 2026, the pace of domestic economic restructuring and upgrading has accelerated, and the real estate industry is entering a critical period of deep adjustment and transformation.

On April 2nd, at the 2026 Outlook Annual Forum, industry insiders’ consensus and practices show that the road of transformation and tackling challenges, though difficult, also presents opportunities. From policy-level “optimizing supply” to corporate-level “quality innovation,” from creating “good houses” to urban renewal, digital transformation, and light-asset operations, the real estate industry is gradually shedding its traditional scale dependence, returning to social attributes, and transforming towards quality competition.

A Historic Node of Old and New Models Transition

Regarding the core issue of industry transformation, experts, scholars, and corporate representatives have expressed their views, interpreting industry policy guidance and development directions.

Wang Shao, President of the Guangdong Real Estate Industry Association, pointed out that compared to the “14th Five-Year Plan,” the core policies for real estate during the “15th Five-Year Plan” have shifted from “increasing supply, stable development” to “optimizing supply, high-quality development, new development models,” marking a transition of real estate from scale expansion to quality improvement, from an “economic stimulus tool” to a “foundation for social stability.”

Facing the new development stage, real estate also faces the connotation requirements of high-quality development. Its core lies in achieving a multi-dimensional unity of “growth stability, development balance, environmental sustainability, and social fairness,” while balancing short-term stability and long-term healthy development.

Wang Shao emphasized that the ultimate goal of good houses is to return to social attributes, enabling everyone to have appropriate housing: “Making urban space better serve the development of all walks of life of the people aligns closely with the ultimate goal of building a modern people’s city.” Real estate companies need to transform the value of “good houses” and “good services” into economic growth drivers, stimulate consumption, and promote effective investment; build high-quality living and production spaces and scenarios, continuously release the long-term holding value of “good houses,” and systematically promote the construction of “good houses, good communities, good neighborhoods, good districts,” helping real estate return to social attributes and becoming an important lever for high-quality development.

Yang Jin, Party Secretary and Chairman of CITIC Urban Development and Operation Co., Ltd., stated that the current real estate industry is at a historic node of transitioning between old and new models, with the dilemma of whether to prioritize cash flow or profit, which companies must face.

Yang Jin believes that the current industry challenge is essentially a necessary result of macroeconomic transformation and urban development stage iteration. The previous scale growth model of the real estate industry has failed, and the industry focus has shifted to optimizing incremental growth and revitalizing existing assets. Currently, fields strongly supported by national policies, such as urban renewal, shantytown renovation, affordable housing construction, and creating good houses, are not only key sectors guided by the state but will also become the main battlefield for future industry value.

Based on this industry judgment, CITIC City Development has established a “development + operation” dual-wheel drive pattern, relying on CITIC Group’s advantages in “finance + industry” integration, focusing on core sectors like risk mitigation and urban renewal. Meanwhile, it actively constructs a “new model exploration, new product creation, new technology application, new ecological building” four-new transformation model, forging a distinctive path of transformation and development.

Corporate Innovation and Development Paths

Standing at a critical node of industry “quantitative change to qualitative change,” adapting to industry development trends and innovating development paths are the core tasks for current real estate companies. Major companies are actively improving quality, exploring development models that meet the new cycle requirements, and pushing the industry toward an era of quality competition.

Meng Wei, Director of the Urban Research Institute of China Merchants Shekou Industrial Zone Holdings Co., Ltd., revealed that China Merchants Shekou is promoting the “Good House 2.0” exploration, focusing on technology integration and innovation. They have built a “Good House” laboratory at their Shenzhen headquarters to explore new issues, new technologies, and customer perception verification.

Green City Life Technology Group is also exploring specific ways to create “good houses.” Zhu Kuai, Deputy General Manager of Green City Life Technology Group and General Manager of Green City Construction Technology Group, pointed out that many real estate companies are in operational difficulties mainly because they generally adopt a patchwork development model.

“The future of real estate competition is essentially ‘technology + humanities’ intelligent human settlement competition. This is also the key reason why traditional patchwork development models cannot adapt or create good houses,” Zhu Kuai explained. Currently, Green City’s related technology systems for good houses have been implemented in multiple projects. In the future, Green City will continue to focus on technology and humanities, allowing more people to live in good houses that meet Green City’s “6633” standard.

As one of the leading companies in the contract construction industry, Gemdale has also established a unique model for creating “good houses.” According to Wang Xin, Deputy General Manager of Gemdale Group’s Development Management Company, Gemdale has built a full-chain management service system in commercial contracting (non-residential fields), covering all stages from early investment decisions, industrial planning, development phases, to post-operation.

In response to industry conditions, Gemdale Management has launched a “Contracting+” and “Contracting-” dual model. On one hand, facing fierce competition from standardized traditional contracting and diversified client needs, Gemdale Management leverages capabilities in industrial park operations, long-term rentals, financing consulting, property services, and health and sports to provide value-added “Contracting+” services; on the other hand, given the saturation of real estate professionals, urban investment platforms, and tech companies can more easily recruit specialized talents, and client demands are shifting toward specific sectors or services. Gemdale Management constructs modular business capabilities to create a “Contracting-” model to meet these needs. Additionally, Gemdale is exploring light-asset consulting models in multiple regions to expand business boundaries.

Industry Trends to Bottom Out and Stabilize

Beike’s platform, Behao Jia, with its advantages, has keen market perception. Wu Bin, General Manager of Behao Jia’s C2M Innovation Center, stated that the current real estate market structure is undergoing major changes. The second-hand housing transaction share in top cities exceeds 70%, and its price trends better reflect the true market situation. Meanwhile, the supply-demand relationship has reversed, with continuous growth in second-hand inventory. Since 2021, the industry has entered a stage of more houses than buyers, with buyers becoming more cautious.

Wu Bin believes that under this background, the essence of “product competition” is to precisely meet specific customer needs. Based on this, Behao Jia launched the C2M (Customer to Manufacturer) model, whose core is “everything revolves around C.” With technological development, leveraging big data, AI, and precise customer outreach capabilities, it is possible to accurately identify C’s needs, enabling land assessment, product positioning, design, and marketing. Behao Jia has developed this capability into a solution, which has been fully validated in cooperation with developers like China Merchants, Yuexiu, Binjiang, and others on more than a dozen projects.

Kineda China’s General Manager of the Building and Real Estate Industry Division, Yan Qiong, analyzed the difficulties in digital transformation faced by real estate companies, proposing a shift from “single product optimization” to “architecture optimization” as a breakthrough. She said that most companies are deeply troubled by digital transformation and AI application, with CEOs feeling anxious and CIOs/CTOs suffering. This dilemma is closely related to the traditional pursuit of “single product excellence” in digital platform selection. Therefore, real estate companies need to break the old mindset and adopt a new “architecture optimization” approach.

Specifically, they should prioritize integrated digital platforms that combine “platform, data, applications, and intelligent agents.” Such platforms can meet multi-modal enterprise needs, support the autonomous development of internal intelligent agents, enable enterprise data governance, and allow direct reuse of SaaS applications and AI agents, greatly accelerating AI technology implementation, improving operational efficiency, and helping companies break through digital transformation bottlenecks.

Besides companies focusing on product upgrades, Din Nan, Vice President of Modern Capital Management Co., Ltd., pays more attention to the development of non-performing assets and industry practitioners. He believes that early on, non-performing assets and debt restructuring were peripheral sectors of the real estate industry. With industry changes, non-performing asset practitioners have entered the core of real estate, and many real estate investment and operation professionals have also entered the non-performing assets field. In DIn Nan’s view, 2026 will be the first time that developers, creditors, homebuyers, and the government share a common understanding, ushering in a real window for restructuring.

As real estate companies bottom out and rebound, signs of “bottoming out and stabilizing” are also emerging. Zhang Yifeng, Chief Analyst and Vice President of China Securities’ Real Estate Industry, stated that the current real estate market shows a gradual stabilization in core cities and weaker performance in non-core cities. The housing prices in the four first-tier cities have features but are overall stable: Beijing second-hand homes increased by 0.2% month-on-month; Shanghai’s second-hand market, after nine months of decline since May 2025, has now recovered to positive alongside Beijing; non-core cities are slightly weaker than core cities.

Yifeng emphasized that since second-hand home prices have been falling for a long time, some areas’ second-hand homes are becoming more cost-effective, exerting some pressure on new home sales in surrounding areas. Therefore, developers need to rely not only on location and environment but also on product quality and upgrades to enhance competitiveness.

Exploring the Path to Industry Upward Movement

In the forum’s discussion segment, Zhang Xiaoduan, Deputy Dean of Cushman & Wakefield Research Institute, as the host, started by emphasizing that although the current real estate market shows some positive signals, overall confidence remains slowly recovering, and industry development trends remain the most concerned focus of insiders.

What key indicators do practitioners usually focus on when facing market trends and turning points?

In response, Long Guxin, Director of China Desheng Group, said that predicting market trends requires attention to multiple indicators, but two core indicators are: first, the number of people and companies willing to invest and start businesses, which is the main driving force behind improvements in rent and transaction indicators; second, the fertility rate of technology talents in first- and second-tier cities (the top 20 cities in China). Long Guxin further explained that urban development should pay more attention to attracting technological innovation resources and new tech populations, which are key to market stabilization.

Guo Rui, General Manager of Guangzhou Branch of Hefu Huihuang, provided specific data to demonstrate positive market changes. Looking at the luxury housing market in Guangzhou, 2025 already saw a “small spring.” Data shows that in the last two weeks of March, visits and transactions increased by 80%, and transaction amounts rose 1.5 times year-on-year, with higher-end properties showing clear improvement.

Guo Rui stated that the fundamental reason for the good transaction performance is product upgrades. Good houses will continue to stimulate more transactions in the future, but good houses are not just about product upgrades; they are also strategic considerations. By improving supply-side quality, overall market demand and confidence can be stimulated.

Meng Wei, Director of the Urban Research Institute of China Merchants Shekou Industrial Zone Holdings, introduced that in 2024 and 2025, good houses will mainly be in the policy guidance and system-building stage; by early 2026, all developers have fully promoted implementation, shifting from marketing and promotion to supply chain core breakthroughs. Taking China Merchants Shekou as an example, in 2025, only six demonstration projects of good houses were built, but by the end of 2025 and early 2026, more than 30 projects were underway, shifting from pilot models to full implementation, steadily advancing the construction of “good houses” to better meet the needs of a beautiful life.

Beyond “good houses,” IWG China President Hu Mao extended his focus to community and supporting facilities. He believes that “good houses” must be complemented by good communities and facilities to form an attractive living environment.

Hu Mao pointed out that optimizing living environments and enhancing community vitality and attractiveness, beyond improving greenery and commercial facilities, should also include supporting office spaces to attract diverse industries into communities: “Because we see that there is also a demand for flexible office within communities, we are now extending into these non-mainstream office areas and communities, establishing flexible office centers. This is complementary to building good communities and good living environments, filling gaps in industry introduction and sustainable development.”

This unconventional approach applies both to incremental markets and urban renewal. First Pacific Davis valuation and consulting director Zhou Zhipeng believes that the development model of city renewal that can be endlessly copied has reached its end. Future breakthroughs will focus on exploiting differential land rent. These projects mainly fall into two categories: one relies on local cultural heritage to create irreplaceable特色, and the other, without a unique location, can build competitiveness through continuous content embedding.

Zhou Zhipeng emphasized that differentiation, personalization, and content embedding are the core competitiveness of city renewal projects: “City renewal is at a stage of transition from old to new. Traditional land acquisition and development models are ending, and the industry will shift from extensive to refined development.”