Real estate Photo:Xinhua

China's real estate sector has made steady progress in ensuring the punctual delivery of homes in the first half of the year, with the top 10 developers delivering 700,000 homes, underscoring the effectiveness of the policy support given to the sector through a period of necessary correction.

Listed real estate companies have announced their first-half results, which showed that 15 developers had delivered more than 20,000 homes. Among that group, eight companies each delivered more than 50,000 homes, the China Securities Journal reported on Tuesday, citing the financial statements. 

The 10 largest developers delivered a total of 700,000 homes, according to the National Business Daily.

Country Garden, one of the nation's largest property developers, which is based in South China's Guangdong Province, said that it had delivered 154,500 homes in 178 cities across 29 provinces in the first half year as it prioritized "the delivery of homes."

Yan Yuejin, research director at Shanghai-based E-house China R&D Institute, told the Global Times on Tuesday that the progress in housing deliveries underlined the solid policy financial support given to developers as the country focused on tackling issues in the property sector. 

"Despite some issues, such as difficulty for some developers to be included on the white list of support, the mechanism is working. It's gotten the attention of local governments and developers," Yan said.

Delivery of homes has been an issue since the second half of 2022, as many developers ran into financial difficulties. The government has since rolled out policy support and financial safeguards to help developers to deliver homes.

Starting from January, China has implemented city-level real estate financing coordination mechanisms in 297 cities and enhanced the efficiency of a "white list" mechanism to meet the financing needs of real estate enterprises.

As of May, loans approved under the mechanism nationwide had reached 935 billion yuan ($128.79 billion), data from the National Financial Regulatory Administration showed.

A smooth progress of deliveries helped developers resume suspended projects and put them on a track of steady recovery, analysts said. For the market as a whole, the move has had a confidence-boosting effect.

In the first half year, some major cities relaxed curbs on property buying, and the government introduced measures to prop up the real estate market by lowering down payment requirements and cutting housing loan interest rates and provident fund loan interest rates.

National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data have provided signs of improvement.

In a detailed report, the NBS said that price declines for new residential buildings in first-tier cities slowed month-on-month in June, with a 0.2 percentage point decrease to 0.5 percent.

However, experts said that more supportive policies are needed to ensure the sector's sound development in the second half year.

"The Chinese property market is still in the process of consuming inventory," Yan said.

A State Council executive meeting held on June 7 called for fully recognizing the new changes in the supply-and-demand relationship in the property sector, implementing existing policies effectively alongside a continued study of new strategies to stabilize the market and reduce its inventory.