Logistics Portfolio Investment Transactions Gain Attention, Neighborhood Retail Assets Becoming Sought After

• Greater Bay Area (GBA) cities continued to extend property-related easing policies from last year through the 1H 2025 period, with a focus on alleviating financial pressure on the supply side and supporting overall residential market sentiment
• However, transaction activity slowed from April 2025, impacted by uncertainties from the trade tariff war, with 1H 2025 GBA primary residential sales numbers growing slightly at 3% y-o-y
• Total investment volume in the GBA commercial real estate (CRE) market reached RMB24.7 billion in 1H 2025, accounting for more than 31% of the overall Chinese mainland investment market
• The industrial/logistics sector's share of total GBA CRE investment expanded notably with several large-sized logistics portfolio deals recorded, while neighbourhood retail malls also captured interest

HONG KONG SAR - Media OutReach Newswire – 29 July 2025 – Global real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield today published its Greater Bay Area Residential andCommercial Real EstateInvestment Market 1H 2025 Review and 2HOutlook. Local governments across GBA cities continued the real estate policies introduced last year through the 1H 2025 period to continue to support a stable market recovery, including easing restrictions on the demand side and alleviating financial pressures on the supply side. From January to March, primary residential market transaction numbers and prices demonstrated growth. Regardless, market sentiment has been weakened since April by uncertainties surrounding the trade tariff war, again prompting potential home buyers to adopt a wait-and-see approach, and resulting in a pause in the upward momentum in home prices. GBA primary residential sales numbers through 1H 2025 recorded mild y-o-y growth of 3%. As for the CRE investment market (large-sized deals at >RMB100 million), property owners have adjusted their expectations. The industrial/ logistics sector accounted for more than 50% of the total GBA investment consideration in 1H 2025, with several large-sized logistics portfolio deals recorded. At the same time, the market has seen increasing interest in the neighborhood retail sector, where assets with stable rental yields are gaining investors' attention. We expect to see more high-quality retail assets transacted in the second half of the year. GBA Residential Market Following the Central Government's reiteration of the need to halt the real estate market decline and spur a stable recovery in its 2025 work report, both the Central Government and GBA local governments continued to extend market-easing real estate policies from last year through the 1H 2025 period. Measures on the demand side, such as "four cancellations" and "four reductions" were extended. Authorities also focused on alleviating financial pressures on the supply side, aiming to strengthen overall market sentiment and boost buyer confidence. Key initiatives included promoting the launch of special-purpose bonds to reclaim and acquire idle land and unsold residential units. Notably, Guangzhou became the first Tier-1 city in the country to fully abolish the "three restrictions" in housing policy. The GBA primary residential market showed resilience in the Q1 period despite being the traditional off-season. Monthly transaction numbers from January to March expanded on the same period last year. However, starting from April, greater uncertainties surrounding the trade tariff war weighed on overall economic performance and dampened residential market sentiment. In turn, more potential home buyers adopted a wait-and-see approach. New home sales in April fell by 16% from March, while May and June remained largely stable. The GBA primary residential market recorded approximately 137,000 transactions in the 1H 2025 period, up slightly at 3% y-o-y, with Tier-1 cities such as Guangzhou and Shenzhen showing significant growth. However, comparing with the significant recovery following last year's introduction of aggressive easing policies, the 1H 2025 total transaction number was down 26% from the 2H 2024 level (Chart 1). Chart 1: GBA First-Hand Residential Sales Source: CREIS, Cushman & Wakefield In terms of home prices, primary market prices are more swayed by the quality level of newly launched projects. First-hand residential prices in the nine GBA mainland cities showed mixed performances in 1H 2025. Developers generally adopted more realistic pricing strategies to attract buyers, actively offloading inventory to improve cash flow. For secondary home prices, which better reflect current underlying trends, and using Shenzhen as an example, the Cushman & Wakefield Shenzhen mid-to-high-end secondary home price index strengthened by 4.0% from the Q4 2024 level. However, as market sentiment turned more cautious from April, overall prices experienced...