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Cao Li

China’s top real estate developers continue to shrink, according to industry data.
The number of mainland property developers achieving annual contracted sales of at least 100 billion yuan (US$14 billion) dropped to just 10 in 2025 from a peak of 43 in 2020, research firm China Real Estate Information Corporation (CRIC) said in a report on Sunday.
Among the top 10 developers, only one, China Jinmao Holdings, reported year-on-year growth in sales, according to CRIC.
The ranks of developers in the 100 billion yuan club, a key indicator of scale in the sector, have shrunk sharply since Beijing introduced the “three red lines” policy in 2020, which tightened financing to cool an overheated market. The number was 20 in 2022, 17 in 2023 and 11 in 2024.
Homebuyers’ confidence now remained subdued, while risks in the market persisted, and as a result, developers’ overall sales continued to face “significant challenges”, CRIC said.
The years-long downturn in China’s property sector, which once accounted for around a quarter of China’s economy, has weighed on everything from employment to consumption.
The value of new home sales in the first 11 months of 2025 fell 11 per cent from a year earlier, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Analysts expected home sales to keep falling and prices to continue to decline for at least the next two years.
At the same time, second-hand home prices in some of China’s most developed cities such as Shanghai and Beijing fell back to a level not seen in nearly 10 years.
The three red lines crackdown triggered a downward spiral. Tighter credit strained developers’ liquidity, leaving many struggling to complete pre-sold homes and repay debts. That, in turn, undermined homebuyer confidence, further squeezing sales and worsening developers’ cash flow.
China Evergrande, the poster child of the property boom, turned from the country’s largest developer to the world’s most indebted developer, collapsing with more than US$300 billion in liabilities and failing to present a viable restructuring plan. It was delisted from the Hong Kong stock exchange in August.
State-backed China Vanke, long regarded as more cautious and financially sound, only narrowly avoided default on a 2 billion yuan bond in December.
Listed developers’ contracted sales were expected to plunge another 16 per cent in 2026, with sales by state-owned developers falling 6 per cent and sales by privately owned companies dropping 17 per cent, according to a report from Citigroup on Sunday.
China’s central and local governments have over the past few years issued hundreds of policies – from lowering mortgage costs to subsidising purchases – in an effort to stem the decline, to little effect.
In late December, China’s commerce and tax authorities announced that they would cut or waive value-added tax on the resale of homes.
On the first day of new year, Qiushi, China’s top party journal, published an opinion piece that called for all-out efforts to stabilise the sector.
International analysts agreed.

“Beijing cannot afford to let its property sector slide indefinitely,” said Lu Ting, chief China economist at Nomura, in a report on Sunday. “Much more decisive action is needed to truly stabilise the property sector and the overall economy.”
In the fifth year of the downturn, the top ranks of developers have shifted from mostly privately owned companies – which, during the boom years, borrowed heavily and expanded aggressively – to state-owned firms, which have traditionally taken a more cautious approach. Of the top 10 developers, only one, Hangzhou-based Binjiang Real Estate Group, is privately owned.
The top 100 developers bought land worth a total of 964 billion yuan in 2025, up 3.9 per cent from 2024, according to the China Index Academy, a real estate research firm. Most of that buying came from state-owned developers.
Developers have continued to shift their efforts towards the largest cities, such as Hangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing. Land sold in each of the three cities reached 140 billion yuan in 2025.
“As the real estate sector enters a period of adjustment, core tier-one and tier-two cities, with large net population inflows and strong industrial bases, have more resilient demand and are therefore more favoured by developers,” China Index Academy said.


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Vanke was seen as a bellwether of the China property sector and one of the country’s more financially stable developers. Photo: AFP

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Only 10 developers manage to break US$14 billion in 2025 sales, down from 43 in 2020


Only 10 developers manage to break US$14 billion in 2025 sales, down from 43 in 2020.


China’s developers diminish further amid unending property downturn

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Only 10 developers manage to break US$14 billion in 2025 sales, down from 43 in 2020

Only 10 developers manage to break US$14 billion in 2025 sales, down from 43 in 2020