Real estate investment in China fell by 11.1% y/y in January–February

Real estate investment in China fell by 11.1% year-over-year in January–February 2026, to 961.2 billion yuan ($139.3 billion). This was reported by SteelOrbis, citing China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Real estate sales by area for the period fell 13.5% year-on-year to 92.93 million square meters. For 2025 as a whole, this figure dropped by 8.7%.

In the first two months of the year, the total floor area of properties under construction decreased by 11.7% year-over-year, while the floor area of new construction fell by 23.1% compared to the same period last year.

Prices for new housing in the country, Reuters reports, fell by 3.2% year-on-year in February, marking the sharpest decline in eight months. The data indicates that the troubled real estate sector is still far from recovery, despite the fact that the country’s largest cities have seen some improvement.

As a reminder, China reduced steel production by 3.6% y/y in January-February 2026, to 160.3 million tons. Steel output in the country fell below the 1 billion-ton mark in 2025, reaching its lowest level since 2018. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China, the country produced 960.81 million tons of steel last year, which is 4.4% less than in 2024. The decline was a result of the protracted crisis in the real estate market, which significantly limited domestic demand for steel products.