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China’s fourth plenum
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Kun Tian
Opinion
Kun Tian

Forget property boom times. China is quietly focusing on ‘good houses’

The proposed 15th five-year plan signals that the sector should transition from high turnover and leverage to product quality and steady margins

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People look at property models at a real estate sales office outside Beijing’s fifth ring road on August 9, after the authorities announced that some purchase restrictions were being removed. Photo: China News Service via Getty Images
Kun Tian
Kun Tian is a senior lecturer in marketing and analytics at Kent Business School, UK, and a fellow at the Taihe Institute.
China’s blueprint of its next five-year plan is quietly rewriting the country’s property playbook. The era of firefighting is giving way to a “build it better” mandate, even as policymakers continue to regard real estate as one of the top financial risks requiring orderly resolution.

Beijing’s recommendations for the 15th five-year plan, which will be finalised in March next year, set the goal of “promoting high-quality development in the real estate sector”, in place of the familiar mantra that housing is “for living in, not for speculation”. This is not a matter of rhetoric but of policy repositioning. The new focus is on rebuilding the system with better rules, a more sustainable operating model and higher-quality products, rather than relying on headline-grabbing curbs.

This matters because the purpose of housing is being redefined. Placed within the broader framework of people’s livelihood, the property sector is no longer merely seen as a driver of urbanisation. Homes are now expected to be affordable and provide security before they serve growth targets.

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