Over the past two years, the real estate sector and related industries have been in dire straits. Many homebuyers are feeling disheartened, widespread defaults have led to personal bankruptcies, and companies in categories such as home furnishings and furniture have suffered a string of collapses. Even regions like Foshan, known for their concentration of real estate supply-chain enterprises, are experiencing significant economic difficulties. Moreover, housing prices in medium and large cities continue to decline, making the situation extremely severe. In my view, it will take a fundamentally new strategic approach at the top level to break the current deadlock.
Objectively speaking, our understanding of the real estate sector is shaped more by global research experience than by immersion in the industry itself. Over the past decade, we have provided consulting services to technology companies in dozens of countries, gaining a certain familiarity with the real estate markets in the US, Europe, and Japan, and have compared these with China’s national conditions, including through our own investment and transactions. Intuitively, I tend to think that our judgments about real estate are overly inward-looking and empirical. Both public opinion and policy confidence are excessively pessimistic, and this pessimism has led to a widespread social consensus that “real estate must f