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Daniel Ren

Sales of luxury homes in mainland China’s top cities are picking up as high-net-worth individuals, benefiting from the country’s tech boom, splash out billions of yuan to improve their housing.
The buying binge has sparked expectations of a broad market recovery after a six-year property slump across the country, according to brokers.
But analysts said such homes represented just a small portion of the mainland’s property industry, with increasing sales and higher prices not enough to turn the overall real estate sector around.
“Most middle- and low-income people are still taking a cautious stance on homebuying,” said You Liangzhou, the owner of the Baonuo property agency in Shanghai. “It is too early to conclude that a full-scale recovery has taken shape.”
China’s real estate sector and related industries, such as home appliances and construction materials, account for about a quarter of its economic output.
Limits on developers’ ability to borrow money that were introduced in mid-2020 led to a property crisis. A wave of defaults by the mainland’s largest developers, such as China Evergrande Group, since 2021 has been a major stumbling block to growth of the world’s second-biggest economy.
Buoyant transactions of only high-priced flats might not be enough to kick off a new round of price surges across the property market
Yan Zhancai, sales consultant
Brokers said the fanfare surrounding expensive homes would be short-lived due to a shaky economy and investors’ worries about their wage income.
“Any positive news about the property sector could lead to speculation that the market will soon bottom out,” said Yan Zhancai, a Shanghai-based sales consultant at property agency Lianjia. “But buoyant transactions of only high-priced flats might not be enough to kick off a new round of price surges across the property market.”
Data from Purui Digital Intelligence Technology, a real estate consultancy and data analytics firm, shows 18,000 new residential units each worth at least 10 million yuan (US$1.48 million) found buyers in 35 major Chinese cities in the first half of this year, down 13 per cent from a year ago.
But 1,636 newly built homes priced between 30 million yuan and 50 million yuan were sold in the same period, up 38 per cent from the first half of last year.
On the mainland, premium homes are residential units sporting a price tag of at least 10 million yuan, while luxury homes are generally flats and ­villas priced at no less than 30 million yuan.
State-owned China Real Estate Business said in a report early this year that most buyers of luxury homes, particularly in cities like Hangzhou, the capital of eastern China’s Zhejiang province, were either owners or senior executives of high-growth technology firms in the fields of semiconductors, artificial intelligence and robotics.
It added that some of the super-rich, aged between 35 and 45, were keen on buying spacious luxury units because they were attracted by the rarity of such property assets.
Hangzhou, about two hours’ drive from Shanghai, is home to the “Six Little Dragons” – China’s most promising tech start-ups. They are AI developer DeepSeek, video game studio Game Science, brain-machine interface innovator BrainCo, 3D interior design software developer Manycore, as well as robot makers Unitree Robotics and Deep Robotics.
We see potential for upside surprises in the second half
HSBC
HSBC said in a research note last month that continued demand for flats in high-end residential projects boded well for some developers’ earnings outlooks.
On June 30, China Overseas Land & Investment sold all 72 flats – priced from 38 million yuan to 104 million yuan – at its Anthe project in Shenzhen.
“We see potential for upside surprises in the second half [of 2026],” HSBC said in the note. “We expect similar premium launches to support sentiment and underpin land-market momentum.”
New home prices in China’s four first-tier cities – Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen – rose by an average of 0.1 per cent in June, extending a four-month rebound, the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed.
In Hangzhou, new home prices climbed 1.9 per cent year on year in June, following a 2 per cent gain in May.


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Data from a real estate consultancy shows 38 per cent rise in sales of homes priced between 30 million and 50 million yuan in first half


Data from a real estate consultancy shows 38 per cent rise in sales of homes priced between 30 million and 50 million yuan in first half.


Luxury home sales rebound in mainland China but overall market recovery unlikely: analysts

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Data from a real estate consultancy shows 38 per cent rise in sales of homes priced between 30 million and 50 million yuan in first half

Data from a real estate consultancy shows 38 per cent rise in sales of homes priced between 30 million and 50 million yuan in first half