The housing market transaction rebound, with clear signals of policy efforts driving a recovery.

Latest data shows: In March, the contracted sales area of newly built commercial residential properties in 50 key cities across the country was about 11.33 million square meters, up 89% month-over-month; the contracted sales area of existing homes in 20 key cities was about 17.97 million square meters, up 117% month-over-month. At the same time, the sales side of real estate developers has also rebounded significantly. In March, 100 typical real estate developers achieved sales equity amounts of 206.52 billion yuan, up 127.1% month-over-month.

The performance of the real estate market in March can be described as “beyond expectations.” When analyzing the objective reasons, it is not hard to see that this round of sales rebound is driven not only by seasonal factors, but also by the sustained push from the policy side.

According to statistics from relevant institutions, in the first quarter, localities cumulatively issued about 160 real-estate-related adjustment policies, among which public provident fund policies exceeded 60, accounting for nearly 38%, becoming the core focus of optimization in this round.

Increasing loan limits, optimizing the recognition of loan usage frequency, broadening the scope for withdrawals and their use, improving contribution policies… These appear to be only localized and incremental adjustments, but in practice they have played a role in precisely lowering the home-purchase entry thresholds for both first-time rigid demand and improved-demand buyers.

Take the example of raising public provident fund loan limits: in many second- and third-tier cities, this means that a typical working-family can increase its effective purchasing power by 10% to 20%, and the marginal effects should not be underestimated.

Beyond public provident funds, localities have also launched a set of policy “package measures” around goals such as activating home-buying demand, destocking inventory, and revitalizing existing stock. Measures including optimizing purchase and resale restrictions, issuing home-purchase subsidies, improving supporting arrangements for urban renewal, and adjusting policies for affordable housing have been rolled out in rapid succession, covering multiple dimensions across the demand and supply sides, as well as incremental and existing inventory, and both the market and保障.

This kind of all-round, multi-layered policy approach shows that the determination at the policy level to stabilize the real estate market is being converted into systematic institutional arrangements.

In particular, it is worth affirming that this round of policy adjustments is not simply a repeat of the past “strong-stimulus” path; it places more emphasis on tailoring measures to local conditions and making precise efforts.

The broad optimization of public provident fund policies, in essence, lowers reasonable home-purchase costs without significantly increasing residents’ leverage. Home-purchase subsidies, supporting arrangements for urban renewal, and other measures are more focused on stimulating genuine residential demand. Combining the policy “package” of “stabilizing demand,” “destocking inventory,” and “ensuring delivery of completed projects” clearly helps avoid major boom-and-bust swings in the market and create conditions for a soft landing for the industry.

Of course, while optimism is warranted regarding the current market rebound, caution is still necessary.

On one hand, although the month-over-month data has improved markedly, compared with the same period last year, the scale of new-home transactions still shows a certain gap, indicating that the current market repair is still in an early stage. On the other hand, differentiation among cities remains obvious. The warming-up pace is faster in first-tier and some core second-tier cities, while some third- and fourth-tier cities have not fundamentally eased their inventory-destocking pressure.

In addition, real estate developers’ debt risk has not been fully cleared, and liquidity pressure in some enterprises still requires ongoing attention.

Looking ahead to the second quarter, as the weather warms and project resumption accelerates, together with the gradual appearance of policy effects from the earlier period, real estate transactions are expected to continue a trend of mild recovery. However, a complete restoration of market confidence still requires the accumulation of more positive factors, including improvements in macroeconomic fundamentals, stable expectations for employment and income, and the substantive advancement of the work to ensure the delivery of homes.

Therefore, in the next step, policies should place more emphasis on precision and effectiveness, while maintaining continuity and stability.

First, efforts should continue to consolidate policy outcomes to prevent major swings in the market and ensure the reasonable release of both rigid and improved-demand purchases. Second, efforts should accelerate the development of a new model for real estate development, advancing three major projects: affordable housing construction, urban village renovations, and the construction of “public infrastructure for both peace and emergency purposes,” to fundamentally resolve structural contradictions in the real estate market.

(Author is a special commentator)

(Editor in charge: Dong Pingping)

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