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as of august 30, more than 100 a+h-share real estate companies have released their 2024 semi-annual reports or mid-term performance announcements. according to the monitoring data of china index academy, the average operating income of 105 a+h-share real estate companies was 11.591 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 13.00%, and the average net profit was 145 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 82.05%.

the profitability of listed real estate companies continues to weaken, and the market is still in the bottoming stage. in the past august, the sales of the top 100 real estate companies fell by 22.1% year-on-year and 2.43% month-on-month. from january to august, the total sales of the top 100 real estate companies was 2683.24 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 38.5%, but the decline continued to narrow compared with the previous month.

the top three in the industry are still poly developments, china overseas land & investment and greentown china, with sales of 220.8 billion yuan, 180 billion yuan and 165.63 billion yuan respectively in the first eight months. analysis points out that with the arrival of the traditional marketing peak season in september, major real estate companies will increase their efforts in launching new properties and marketing, but the overall market recovery still requires policy stimulus.

since august, policy optimization has continued to advance in various places. chengdu and changsha have clearly identified the first home by district. at the same time, chengdu has clearly stated that if there is a home in the district (city) or county where the home is to be purchased and it is listed for sale, the number of homes will be reduced accordingly. guangzhou, kunming, tangshan and other cities have optimized provident fund policies, including supporting provident fund down payments, reducing the minimum down payment ratio of provident fund loans, and increasing the maximum amount of provident fund loans. shanghai has optimized the building area standards and supply ratios of small and medium-sized housing units on newly allocated commercial housing land.

however, the supply and demand of new homes in august fell to the second lowest level of the year. according to cric data monitoring, the supply and demand of new homes in august continued to be weak in july, and the absolute volume was the second lowest in the year (only slightly higher than february at the beginning of the year): the supply and transaction volume in the 30 key cities in august fell by 4% and 12% month-on-month, and fell by 38% and 22% year-on-year, respectively, significantly lower than the monthly average in the second quarter. the year-on-year decline in transaction volume in august widened by 9 percentage points from the previous month. the cumulative year-on-year decline in transaction volume in the first eight months was 34%, a narrower decline of 1.24 percentage points from the previous month.

at the sales level, the sales thresholds of each echelon of the top 100 real estate companies have been further lowered compared with the same period last year. specifically, there are 6 companies in the 100 billion camp, 6 fewer than the same period last year, with an average sales of 169.42 billion yuan. there are 7 companies in the second camp (50-100 billion), which is the same as the same period last year, with an average sales of 64.92 billion yuan. there are 5 companies in the third camp (30-50 billion), 14 fewer than the same period last year, with an average sales of 41.1 billion yuan. there are 43 companies in the fourth camp (10-30 billion), 9 fewer than the same period last year, with an average sales of 17.06 billion yuan.

liu shui, director of corporate research at china index academy, believes that with the arrival of the traditional peak season of "golden september and silver october", the activity of the new home market in core cities may pick up slightly in the short term, but the sharp reduction in land supply in the early stage may restrict the supply capacity of real estate companies, thereby dragging down the recovery of sales. at the same time, long-term factors such as residents' income expectations have not improved significantly, and the overall new home market is still under pressure. under the "price-for-volume" policy, it is expected that the second-hand home market in core cities will maintain a certain level of activity.

real estate developers tend to be "cautious" in acquiring land

from january to august this year, the total amount of land acquired by the top 100 real estate developers was 473.13 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 40.0%, and the decline continued to expand by 2.0 percentage points compared with january to july. although first- and second-tier cities such as shanghai, beijing, hangzhou, and nanjing launched land in august, the overall transaction was slightly flat, with only a few core plots having a high premium rate. the year-on-year decline in the total amount of land acquired by the top 100 companies continued to expand.

in terms of new value of goods, greentown china, c&d real estate and china resources land ranked the top three. from january to august 2024, greentown china ranked first with a new value of 62.9 billion yuan, c&d real estate ranked second with a new value of 61.3 billion yuan, and china resources land ranked third with a new value of 50.8 billion yuan. the total value of new goods of the top10 companies from january to august 2024 was 450.6 billion yuan, accounting for 31.1% of the top100 companies, and the threshold for new value of goods was 6.1 billion yuan.

judging from the top 10 real estate developers in terms of land acquisition amount in key cities, central enterprises and state-owned enterprises are still the main force, and private enterprises are also replenishing land reserves in key areas. poly development, china overseas land & investment, china construction yipin, china railway construction, china resources land and other companies have extensive layouts in many key cities. central state-owned enterprises still maintain a high degree of participation. private enterprises and mixed-ownership enterprises such as greentown china and binjiang group focus on replenishing land reserves in key areas. regional real estate developers such as ningbo jiangshan wanli, weixing real estate, and deli real estate are deeply cultivating key cities to increase land reserves.

in terms of the amount of land acquisition by each city cluster, the yangtze river delta leads the country. from january to august 2024, the top 10 enterprises in the yangtze river delta acquired land worth 101.1 billion yuan, continuing to rank first among the four city clusters, with a rapid growth, mainly due to the land auctions in shanghai, hangzhou, nanjing, wuxi and other cities in august. the top 10 enterprises in the beijing-tianjin-hebei region acquired land worth 81 billion yuan, ranking second; the top 10 enterprises in the central and western regions acquired land worth 38.9 billion yuan, ranking third.

real estate tycoons look at the market

"the improvement in the supply-demand relationship has created conditions for the market to get out of the trough and regain upward momentum." on august 30, yu liang, chairman of the board of directors of vanke, made the latest trend judgment on the real estate market at the 2024 mid-term performance promotion meeting. he said that after three years of adjustment, the cost-effectiveness of new houses is improving, and the policy support for diversified housing needs is also continuing to increase. these are accumulating energy for the recovery of market demand and providing soil for the arrival of a new development stage.

regarding the trend of the real estate market this year, lin zhaoyuan, chairman and executive director of yuexiu real estate, said at the performance meeting held on august 28: "overall, the market is still seeking a balance. there are problems with the differentiation of the entire market and consumer confidence. in the future, my country's real estate will clearly enter a new development model, in which affordable housing will be led by the government and market housing will be operated by enterprises in a market-oriented manner. in the future, the market will return to the attribute of 'good housing', and improved products, good products and good services will be the mainstream of the market; at the same time, the higher the level of the city, the greater the market resilience and opportunities will be."

regarding the second half of the year, poly development stated at the august investor conference that it has actively responded to national policies, comprehensively sorted out its resources, and actively communicated with local governments on the details and plans for the implementation of policies in terms of stock land regulation, replacement, stock housing acquisition, etc., and accelerated the implementation in accordance with the principles of marketization and legalization. it has now achieved stock housing acquisition in zhengzhou, jinhua, etc. in the second half of the year, poly development will continue to adhere to the business strategy of destocking and adjusting the structure, and actively respond to this round of in-depth adjustments in the industry.

greentown china's management also admitted that the industry was still in deep adjustment in the first half of this year, with sluggish investment, shrinking land, rising inventory, and pressure on the scale and profits of listed real estate companies. there was a slowdown in business and a situation of trading price for volume. regarding investment in the second half of the year, the management emphasized that the investment standards will be more detailed than before, with more emphasis on the liquidity and cost-effectiveness of the project, emphasizing structural investment opportunities, favoring first-tier and strong second-tier cities, and requiring double-digit project profit margins.

the management of longfor group predicts that the market will still fluctuate in the second half of the year. longfor will continue to work hard to sell inventory and maintain a flexible pace of pushing goods and projects according to market conditions. it also stated that profitability is a common problem in the entire industry and an issue that needs to be solved in the process of crossing the cycle. longfor will restore the gross profit of the development business while maintaining a steady and firm growth in operating and service income.