Housing production and the structural transformation of China’s real estate development industry

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between housing production and the structural transformations that have taken place in China’s real estate development industry. It first identifies how the industry has changed since the early 2000s and what factors were driving those changes. It shows that the industry became increasingly concentrated prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, with large firms accounting for a growing share of the country’s housing production. This was mostly due to the advantages large firms enjoy in China, such as access to low-cost capital, an open land market system, and the use of pre-sale business practices. Yet an empirical analysis of 35 major Chinese cities shows that local housing production remained largely decentralized, a result of China’s rapidly rising land cost that discouraged local industry concentration. The study then discusses what these findings mean for the Chinese housing markets, with particular attention to how the pandemic has exposed the risks associated with China’s real estate industry organization.