CRIC Real Estate: Inventory in 50 cities decreased by 11%, peripheral areas such as Beijing, Guangzhou, and Hanning still face pressure in selling small-sized properties.

Currently, due to the control of new housing supply, the real estate market inventory continues to decline. By the end of January 2025, the narrow inventory of 50 key cities decreased by 11% year-on-year. However, it is worth noting that key cities such as Guangzhou, Wuhan, and Nanjing still have a selling period of over 20 months, and they still face certain difficulties in selling in the short term. What are the characteristics of the current inventory structure in these three cities, and which types of properties may face selling difficulties in the future? Narrow inventory continues to decline by 11% year-on-year in 50 cities, Guangzhou, Han, and others have a selling period of more than 20 months Currently, due to supply constraints, the real estate market is still in a destocking cycle. By the end of January 2025, the narrow inventory of new residential properties in 50 cities continued to decrease, and the selling period remained high. According to CRIC monitoring, by the end of January 2025, the narrow inventory of new residential properties in 50 cities was only 31.093 million square meters, a decrease of 1% compared to the previous month and 11% year-on-year. Calculated based on a 12-month period, the selling period by the end of December 2025 reached 21.53 months, unchanged from the previous month and a 12% increase year-on-year. Focusing on key first and second-tier cities, we find that cities such as Changchun, Beijing, Nanning, Zhengzhou, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Wuhan, and Nanjing still have a selling period of more than 20 months. In order to better analyze the inventory structure features of high inventory cities and the likelihood of future selling, we selected Guangzhou, Wuhan, and Nanjing as typical cities for detailed analysis. Area Segment: Inventory in the outskirts of Guangzhou, Wuchang, and Jianing in Nanjing accounts for a high proportion From the perspective of inventory areas, Guangzhou and Nanjing have formed typical differentiated characteristics. The inventory of low-value areas in the outskirts of cities such as Guangzhou and Wuchang is relatively high and has been gradually increasing. For example, by the end of January 2025, the inventory of properties in areas such as Guangzhou's Zengcheng District and Wuhan's Dongxihu District accounted for 23.12% and 14.28% respectively, an increase from the end of 2024 by 0.09% and 0.07% respectively. The medium-value area Jiangning District in Nanjing has the highest proportion of inventory. According to CRIC monitoring data, by the end of 2025, the inventory of properties in Jiangning District accounted for 21.2%, an increase of 0.19% from the end of 2024. In comparison, the core areas of the city such as Xuanwu and Qinhuai accounted for less than 5% of the inventory. Inventory of hotel-style apartments in the outskirts of Guangzhou, Wuhan, and Nanjing is oversupplied, posing difficulties in selling In order to better analyze the ease of inventory selling in Guangzhou, Wuhan, and Nanjing, we compared the inventory structure with the transaction structure of the three cities. Considering the occasional factors that may affect January 2025, we compared the full-year transaction structure of 2024. It can be seen that the size segments in Guangzhou and Wuhan are generally matching, mainly due to the supply-demand imbalance in the outskirts areas. However, Nanjing is the opposite, with a significant oversupply in the size segments below 70 square meters. Specifically, the transaction structure in Guangzhou is mainly focused on 100-120 square meters and 80-90 square meters, both accounting for 23%, which is basically matching with the inventory structure, except that 80-90 square meters has a significantly higher transaction proportion due to high demand. The transaction structure in Wuhan is highly similar to the inventory structure, with 100-120 square meters and 120-140 square meters as the main segment, accounting for 34.8% and 24.8% respectively, which is consistent with the inventory structure. There are no obvious supply-demand mismatch in other size segments. In terms of regional structure, the inventory in the outskirts areas such as Guangzhou's Zengcheng District and Wuhan's Dongxihu District in January 2025 accounted for a significantly higher proportion than the transaction volume in 2024, indicating a significant oversupply situation. Nanjing is slightly different from Guangzhou and Wuhan, with supply-demand mismatch mainly reflected in the size segment. In terms of regions, Jiangning District shows a balanced supply and demand, with both inventory and transactions accounting for 21%. In the short term, there is no significant risk of inventory overhang, and only core areas such as Yuhuatai District and Qinhuai District in the city have a more evident supply-demand imbalance. In terms of size segments, there is still a significant oversupply in the hotel-style apartments below 70 square meters in Nanjing, with the inventory accounting for 29.2% by the end of January 2025, while the transaction volume in 2024 was less than 10%, indicating a high probability of future selling difficulties. Overall, affected by the control of new housing supply, the real estate market is still in a destocking cycle, with a downward trend in narrow inventory. By the end of January 2025, the narrow inventory in 50 key cities was only 31,093 million square meters, a decrease of 1% compared to the previous month and 11% year-on-year. Key cities such as Guangzhou, Wuhan, and Nanjing still have a selling period of more than 20 months, indicating a certain risk of selling. Analyzing the inventory structure, we found that Guangzhou and Wuhan mainly have a high proportion of inventory in the 100-140 square meter range in the outskirts, while Nanjing has an inventory backlog of hotel-style apartments within 70 square meters in medium-value areas. By combining the transaction structure of 2024 and customer preferences for purchasing, we believe that there are still significant issues in selling in areas such as Guangzhou's Zengcheng District and Wuhan's Dongxihu District.Supply exceeds demand, the problem of inventory clearance remains prominent in the later period, while Nanjing mainly faces a higher risk of inventory clearance in small-sized hotel-style apartments below 70 square meters. With the decline in investment speculation demand, there will be significant pressure on inventory clearance in the future.This article is from the WeChat official account "Krystal Real Estate Research", edited by GMTEight: Chen Qiuda.