Property & Real Estate

China's property stabilization just shifted from subsidy-tinkering to structural redesign. On Aug 28, the PBOC and NFRA jointly issued sweeping real-estate credit rules that extend the maximum mortgage term to 40 years and delay loan issuance for pre-sold homes until construction is completed ^1,2. The explicit goal is to move away from the presale model toward a completed-home sales system. This is the most consequential policy action in the batch because it targets the financing mechanism that created delivery risk in the first place.

The new rules are codified in five trial measures from NFRA: commercial housing development loans, personal housing loans, commercial real estate loans, urban renewal project loans, and trust business in real estate ². They implement 'project-centered, lead-bank, closed-fund management' — borrowing the 'white list' mechanism and extending it across all ownership types. The personal-housing-loan measure adjusts the timing of loan disbursement, relaxes the income-to-debt cap, and extends the maximum loan term. Combined, the system pushes construction financing from buyer prepayments toward project-based bank lending.

This is a structural complement to the CSRC's Aug 28 Opinions on Capital Market Support for Building a New Model for Real Estate Development, which promised to shift developer financing from entity credit to project-based funding and to treat owners of all types equally ^3,4. Together, the two documents form a coherent new financing pattern: capital-market instruments (REITs, CMBS, ABS, private funds) for stable assets, and bank lending on a closed-loop project basis for development. What was a 'third track' in the standing assessment is now the centerpiece of the new model.

The demand-side track remains active but secondary. Chengdu's Aug 25 four-department document set a 15% minimum provident-fund down payment and a one-year interest subsidy of 20% of interest, capped at 25,000 yuan; Shanghai's '沪八条' offers a 1%-of-loan subsidy for new-home purchases outside the outer ring, capped at 50,000 yuan; more than 20 cities have issued mortgage-interest subsidies this year ⁵. These measures lower the cost of buying but do not change how homes are built and sold. The presale overhaul addresses the latter.

The counter-signal is real. Delaying loan issuance until completion will remove a major source of construction funding — prepayments from pre-sold homes — and unless project-based lending is actually disbursed on the same scale, developer liquidity could tighten further, especially for private firms. The new measures are 'trial' (试行) and transitional details are not public. Caixin and Bloomberg both frame the move as an overhaul driven by a protracted crisis, not a confirmation of recovery ^1,6. The test is whether banks will extend project loans quickly enough to offset the loss of presale proceeds.

The structural pivot continues underneath. MOHURD Minister Ni Hong, visiting Hubei on Aug 24-25, reiterated that the 15th Five-Year Plan period is a 'critical transition period' for housing construction and pushed urban renewal and activation of urban stock ^7,8. Hainan's Aug 24 symposium, chaired by Governor Liu Xiaoming, pressed developers to shift from 'heavy development' to 'heavy service' and from expanding increment to improving quality ⁹. Chongqing's Aug 27 symposium with central SOEs released 193 projects worth over 750 billion yuan ^10,11. Jiangsu's five-department financial measures for urban renewal (Aug 23) add another provincial channel ¹².

For outside readers, the direction is unmistakable: the presale model that defined China's housing market for decades is being wound down. Buyers will increasingly purchase completed homes, developers will be financed project-by-project under closed-loop supervision, and the state balance sheet will be used for urban renewal and stock activation rather than bailing out insolvent developers. Watch for the transitional rules on projects already under presale, and for the first loan disbursements under the new project-centered mechanism — those will show whether the new model can preserve liquidity while it eliminates the old one.