Annual Report Deep Dive | Decoding Yuexiu Property's 2025 Annual Report: Three Capabilities to Navigate Cycles

As the industry shakeout accelerates, the split among property developers’ camps is becoming increasingly clear. According to monitoring by the China Index Academy, in 2025, the number of property developer firms in each camp is still shrinking noticeably. There are 10 developers with sales exceeding RMB 100 billion; compared with the previous year, this is down by 1. There are 73 companies with sales above RMB 10 billion; compared with the previous year, this is down by 13.

But this also precisely reflects the huge differences in risk-resilience among property developers during the industry adjustment period. A group of outstanding companies—by leveraging strong resilience—have crossed the cycle and become “top students” that continue to improve in a diversified market.

On March 31, Yuexiu Real Estate released its 2025 full-year performance report. During the reporting period, Yuexiu Real Estate cumulatively achieved contract sales of RMB 106.21 billion. Its industry ranking surged dramatically from 37th in 2021 to 9th, firmly maintaining its position in the first-tier group. In 2025, revenue reached RMB 86.46 billion, maintaining year-on-year growth. After-tax profit was RMB 1.78 billion, up 21.4% year on year, making it one of the very few property developers in the industry that continued to generate profit.

At the performance briefing, Yuexiu Real Estate Chairman Lin Zhaoyuan also expressed firm confidence in Yuexiu’s sustained future development. He said that in 2026 the company will focus on the work theme of “achieving solid performance with lean stability, strengthening capabilities through reforms, and promoting development through transformation.” It will stabilize a RMB 100 billion-scale footprint, consolidate its core market position, make better quality improvements in incremental value, and implement “promoting stability through investment, investing to achieve stability—investing with one-tenth of the effort.” It will do better and go deeper with the “one core, two wings” strategy, and drive transformation and upgrading and high-quality development with “four good enterprises” and lean management, to achieve a promising start to the “15th Five-Year Plan” period and smoothly navigate through the cycle.

Sales show resilience in every way—strong cash generation solidifies a stable foundation

When overall industry sales generally trend downward, Yuexiu Real Estate’s performance curve has remained steady against the headwinds.

According to Yuexiu Real Estate’s annual performance report, during the period the Group achieved contract sales of RMB 106.21 billion. In the 2025 China Index Research Institute property developer sales ranking, Yuexiu Real Estate ranked 9th, and has remained among the top-tier first group in the “RMB 100 billion sales” club for three consecutive years. Among these, the core six cities delivered contract sales of about RMB 90.9 billion.

This sales performance is especially valuable given the current industry environment. It should be noted that in 2025 the real estate market was in a crucial policy window for “bottoming out and stabilizing.” The central and local governments have already rolled out a series of “support the housing market” measures, with clear signals that policy support is being provided. However, the release of policy effects is not immediate. From policy implementation to substantive feedback on the sales end still requires a transmission cycle.

As a result, the industry’s overall sales situation has not yet shown a trend reversal. Institutional data shows that in 2025, among the property developers ranked in the top 10 for industry sales, the average year-on-year decline in contracted sales was 16%. The leading camp is also under significant pressure. Against this backdrop, Yuexiu Real Estate demonstrated performance clearly better than its peers: its sales decline in the same period was less than half of the industry average line.

Industry insiders say that this relative ability to resist a downturn reflects both the resilience of its project layout and product structure. It also indirectly confirms that at a stage when policy transmission has not fully landed, high-quality property developers have begun to show signs of stabilizing and leading the broader market.

Behind these achievements is Yuexiu Real Estate’s adherence to “prioritizing cadence and balancing volume and price” as its basic principles. Under the backdrop of overall industry sales pressure, the company adopted a strategy of “grabbing both investment and destocking”—precisely controlling the land-acquisition timing at the front end without chasing prices upward blindly, while also not missing low-premium windows; at the back end, it strengthened the ability to sell existing and quasi-existing inventory, curbing the growth of stock scale. Meanwhile, it continuously upgraded full-cycle management such as market research, customer operation, and sales conversion. It also optimized the marketing fee-rate structure to improve the proportion of transactions through its own channels and existing customers. Ultimately, it achieved a dual breakthrough: resilience on the sales front and improved operating efficiency.

Because of this, by the end of 2025, Yuexiu Real Estate’s after-tax profit increased by 21.4% year on year, with core net profit reaching RMB 260 million, making it one of the very few property developers that remained in a profitable state. At the same time, the company’s operating cash flow has continued a net inflow trend for many years. It maintained a high level of RMB 13.94 billion for the full year, demonstrating strong endogenous cash-generation capability. This not only provides ample funding reserves for its subsequent investment and layout, but also builds a solid barrier for overall cash-flow safety—becoming a key “ace” that enables Yuexiu Real Estate to move forward steadily.

What’s more, Yuexiu Real Estate’s “steadiness” is also reflected in many other areas, such as continuous optimization of its debt structure.

As of end-2025, the proportion of Yuexiu Real Estate’s debt due within one year was 26%, and the proportion of medium- and long-term debt was 74%. At period end, cash was RMB 46.76 billion. The coverage multiple for short-term debt due within one year reached 1.7 times. The company’s weighted average borrowing cost dropped to 3.05%, down 44 basis points year on year. For two consecutive years, its financing cost has been trending downward, and both the cost level and the reduction magnitude are ranked first among local state-owned enterprises in the industry. Based on its solid financial condition, Yuexiu Real Estate maintains “all-green” status under the “three red lines” and has dual investment-grade credit ratings from S&P and Fitch, with outlooks all stable.

Standard Chartered Bank said that Yuexiu Real Estate’s share price is currently in a historically low range, and its valuation has some deviation from its fundamentals. Meanwhile, the company’s sales performance is leading the industry, and it is expected to provide strong support for its share price and valuation, which offers room for repair. Therefore, the bank maintains a “Buy” rating.

Multidimensional pre-judgment and decision-making in advance—deep cultivation of six core benchmark cities

Currently, the real estate industry is entering a new stage, with deep adjustments in the supply-demand landscape and a reshaping of the market-value logic.

In a commentary published by Xinhua News Agency, it said that China’s real estate market has moved beyond the phase of broad-based price increases or declines, and has entered a structural new stage of “stable core areas and clearing at the margins.”

Data monitored by multiple institutions also shows that across the country, the residential real estate market is forming a clear “20/80 split” pattern. About 20% of the core cities’ core areas are able to resist a downturn, preserve value, and achieve mild increases. Meanwhile, about 80% of third- and fourth-tier cities are trapped in a predicament of liquidity drying up. The “keystone” function of asset “ballast” is mainly concentrated in first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, as well as strong second-tier cities such as Hangzhou and Chengdu. These regions generally share three characteristics: a solid industrial foundation, continued inflow of population, and well-developed supporting resources—forming the underlying logic of asset value in core cities.

Recently, the “spring-like” mini-rally in the housing market has also been initiated first by first-tier cities. The latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that among the 70 large and medium-sized cities monitored in February, first-tier cities first ended the streak of declines in prices of newly built commodity residential housing after nine consecutive months. The resale home prices in core cities such as Beijing and Shanghai also rebounded at the same time.

Against this backdrop, optimizing asset quality and making precise investments have become the core themes for property developers.

In response, Yuexiu Real Estate has built a multidimensional market research system, promoting efficient coordination and linkage between its investment end and various business departments, providing solid data support for investment decision-making. At the same time, the company brings forward investment to enable property development planning and strategy pre-research during the land acquisition stage, effectively reducing uncertainties in the development process and ensuring the predictability of investment returns.

In terms of strategic orientation, Yuexiu Real Estate adheres to a core-city-focused strategy and proposes a “reading the city, reading the land, and reading the people” operation philosophy. It deeply studies the demand characteristics of different cities and continues to strengthen its local-operations capabilities. The company also actively coordinates with local governments to optimize land-supply timing, building a differentiated competitive advantage through interactions between the government and enterprises to achieve mutual benefit and win-win outcomes.

Based on this mature investment-management system, Yuexiu Real Estate’s investment focus is highly concentrated in six core cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, and Chengdu. In 2025, these six cities accounted for as much as 96.3% of the company’s equity investment amount, demonstrating very strong investment focus. From the perspective of sales contribution, the results of this layout are significant: sales in Beijing exceeded RMB 30 billion, sales in Shanghai and Guangzhou were RMB 22.2 billion and RMB 29.1 billion respectively; together, the sales of these three cities contributed about 78% of the company’s total sales. Overall, the company’s sales share in first- and second-tier core cities has reached 85.6%.

Behind the RMB 100 billion sales scale is forward-looking layout on the investment side, which also cannot be separated from solid groundwork in land reserves. By the end of 2025, Yuexiu Real Estate’s total land reserve was 18.55 million square meters. Its layout continued to concentrate on high-energy cities, with the combined share of first- and second-tier cities reaching 94.4%. In terms of新增 land reserves added in 2025, the share of first-tier cities further increased to 67.7%. In addition, Yuexiu Real Estate seized the opportunity to increase reserves during a market downturn and add positions in low-premium windows, ultimately keeping its average land-acquisition premium rate within 9.3%, which is nearly 50% lower than the average among the top 10 property developers.

Worth noting is that in February this year, Yuexiu Group acquired the Ma Chang land parcel at the intersection of three major CBDs—Zhujiang New Town, Financial City, and Pazhou— in Guangzhou for RMB 23.6 billion, drawing widespread industry attention.

Industry insiders said that this project is the last contiguous urban renewal land parcel in Zhujiang New Town. It links ultra-luxury commercial facilities (SKP has signed on), high-end hotels, and super–Class-A office segments through an open public-space format. Yuexiu Real Estate is expected to deeply participate by leveraging its capabilities in comprehensive city development and operations. Previously, the group’s “incubation by parent company—capital injection into the listed company” model had already been validated via the Pazhou South TOD, providing a mature path for subsequent asset operations. A scarce project like Ma Chang can not only bring long-term incremental performance, but also drive systematic upgrades in the company’s product strength, brand strength, and operational capabilities.

Crafting hard-core “good homes” to anchor mainstream demand and build an industry moat

If optimizing land reserves is about accumulating momentum for future development, then refining products and services is the internal capability enterprises forge for long-term competition.

Industry insiders say that in a context where structural differentiation in the industry keeps deepening, only by sticking to product-centered thinking—using innovation concepts and delivering ultimate experiences to create truly market-demand-aligned “good homes”—can companies take the initiative in the new round of the cycle.

In 2025, policy windows in core cities such as Beijing and Shanghai were gradually opened. However, homebuyers have become increasingly cautious. Funds are more rationally flowing toward projects with stronger certainty. What counts as “strong certainty”?

“Good homes” have been written into government work reports for two consecutive years. This policy direction has long been synchronized with market demand. In other words, “good homes” are no longer confined to the concept level; they become new drivers for real estate investment and consumption, and they have also earned recognition from homebuyers through real money.

Data from the China Index Academy shows that Yuexiu Real Estate’s project Heyue Wangyun in Beijing achieved a sell-through rate of 96% in the month of its launch. With sales of RMB 9.25 billion, it ranked first on Beijing’s 2025 commodity residential sales chart. Shanghai Fiyun Yufu achieved RMB 15.9 billion and 1,022 units, taking first place in both Shanghai’s sales unit count and sales area……

And the performance of these individual projects is only one aspect of how the market recognizes Yuexiu Real Estate. Expanding the view to the company as a whole, Yuexiu Real Estate has achieved strong results in multiple core cities. In its Guangzhou home base, the company ranked TOP 2 locally with sales of RMB 29.1 billion. In Beijing, it broke through RMB 30 billion and also ranked second. In Shanghai, it achieved RMB 22.2 billion, ranking seventh.

“As a company, we have always upheld the long-term strategy of our ‘Four Good Enterprises’—‘good products, good services, good brands, and good teams.’” Yuexiu Real Estate Chairman Lin Zhaoyuan said at the performance briefing.

In fact, from “building houses” to “building good houses,” and then to “building good living,” Yuexiu Real Estate continues to deepen its customer-research system, implements the “4X4 good product”理念, completes standardized upgrades across four product lines, and differentiates to meet the needs of both high-end improvement buyers and quality-based rigid demand customers. By strongly promoting integrated design-and-construction and upgrading the “Yue Intelligent Manufacturing” system, it achieves simultaneous improvement in product quality, construction efficiency, and customer satisfaction. Multiple projects have won industry design and quality awards.

At the same time, focusing on customers’ whole life-cycle needs, Yuexiu constructs a “research—build—service” three-in-one product innovation system, accelerates the research and application of healthy living technology, and advances the building of “good homes and good communities” through an integrated approach of “product + service + operations,” enabling a leapfrog upgrade from product delivery to value co-existence.

At the new starting point of the “15th Five-Year Plan” period, the real estate industry’s landscape is undergoing profound change, with resources and market space continuously concentrating on enterprises with comprehensive strength. With a healthy financial foundation, precise investment layout, solid product capabilities, and a steady development momentum, Yuexiu Real Estate has emerged with an independent track in this industry shakeout. Its experience shows that the key to navigating the cycle is not about the size of the scale, but whether the foundation is solid, whether the strategy is clear, and whether execution is in place. This is precisely the proper meaning of the real estate industry moving toward high-quality development.