Galaxy Securities: Real Estate Market Expected to Stabilize and Stop Decline within the Year
The real estate market is once again brewing a narrative of "stabilizing after a decline." The optimistic wording in brokerage research reports often reminds people of the weather forecast phrase "scattered rain"—it sounds hopeful, but you never know if you are that "scattered" location.
Analysis
Price adjustments, high inventory, and weak demand—these three phrases together have become the standard disclaimer for the real estate market. But what is truly intriguing is why every discussion about the market eventually slides into the preset track of "policy stimulus will lead to stabilization." The mention of "stabilizing the real estate market" at the April Politburo meeting triggered market anticipation like a coded signal. This conditioned reflexive expectation is itself a phenomenon worth警惕.
Transaction volumes in first-tier cities are indeed picking up, but is this a genuine recovery in demand, or a short-term pulse driven by policy stimulus? The claim that rent-to-sale ratios are tending toward balance often masks a harsh reality: when the price-to-income ratio remains dauntingly high for ordinary households, the so-called "reasonable range" is more of a statistical gloss. The market is not transitioning toward "genuine demand-driven" dynamics but is instead caught in a tug-of-war between policy support and wait-and-see sentiment.
Even more ironic is that when analysts describe the future as a "slow recovery," this "slow" could mean years of struggle. Developers are mired in debt, homebuyers linger in the psychology of "waiting a bit longer," and the inertia of land finance forces local governments to continually test the boundaries of regulatory controls. This stalemate among multiple parties is hardly a "clearing process"—it is more like a psychological war, waiting to see who blinks first.
The "stabilization" blueprint outlined in research reports overlooks a fundamental contradiction: when economic growth is decelerating, the job market is under pressure, and household leverage ratios are approaching their ceiling, can real estate still play the role of an economic engine as it did for the past two decades? Pinning hopes on incremental measures like "urban renewal" is akin to putting new tires on a leaking car—without addressing the structural problems, it won't go far.
What is most unsettling is the implicit inertia in this analysis: as if real estate "cannot fall," and there is no willingness to deeply explore "why it cannot fall." When the entire system is anxious about "stopping the decline," it exposes our collective fear of economic structural transformation. A healthy economy needs to rely on technological innovation and consumption upgrades, not perpetually numb itself with the fantasy of steel and cement.
The market may momentarily catch its breath under policy escort, but true "stabilization" requires a more thorough revolution in mindset—accepting that real estate must return to its status as an ordinary commodity, that the land finance model must historically phase out, and that the logic of growth must be fundamentally restructured. Until then, all predictions of "halting the decline" are merely the groans of an old cycle extending its line.
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