On October 20, according to data from the China Index Research Institute, from January to September 2026, the total land acquisition by 100 real estate companies was 578.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 20.5%; after the decline narrowed for six consecutive months, the decline expanded again by 2.7 percentage points.

Looking at residential land transactions in 300 cities across the country, the transaction volume in September was 37.5 million square meters, a year-on-year decrease of 34.6%; the land transfer fee was 167.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 19.7%.

Analysis believes that on August 28, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the Ministry of Natural Resources, and the State Financial Supervision and Administration Bureau jointly issued a new policy, clarifying that new land transfer projects will give priority to the sale of existing houses, and the pre-sale threshold will be raised to the cap of the main structure. This will lead to a significantly longer period of capital occupation from land acquisition to payment repayment, and the threshold for land acquisition and development funds for real estate companies will be raised accordingly. The competition logic of the land market is facing reshaping, and investment in land acquisition will become more cautious in September.

From the perspective of corporate structure, there were 31 companies with a land acquisition amount of more than 1 billion yuan in September, 16 fewer than the same period last year; among them, there are 14 central state-owned enterprises, 10 local state-owned enterprises, and 7 private real estate enterprises. Central state-owned enterprises and local state-owned enterprises are still the main force in acquiring land.

Private real estate companies that are deeply engaged in some areas have maintained their pace, such as Binjiang Group and Bangtai Group, which have steadily acquired land. Zhenghong Real Estate, Haiwei Real Estate, Longxiang Holdings, etc. have continued to deploy in advantageous areas; among them, Longxiang Holdings won the core residential land in Xi'an Tuanjie area for 970 million yuan. Its "Longxiang Weiyang Heming" project ranked first in Xi'an's commercial residential sales, with sales of 5.89 billion yuan from January to September, ranking 6th in the local area.

According to the ranking list of land acquisitions by real estate companies in September 2026, China Resources Land ranked first in the amount of equity land acquisition with 10.8 billion yuan and 590,000 square meters, followed by China Merchants Shekou (8.6 billion yuan / 720,000 square meters), C&D Real Estate (7.8 billion yuan / 230,000 square meters), China Overseas Land (6.9 billion yuan / 150,000 square meters), and Poly Development (6.7 billion yuan / 580,000 square meters).

Overall, under the policy background of "tightened conditions for existing home sales + pre-sales", the land market is under short-term pressure, and central state-owned enterprises, local state-owned enterprises and some regional solid real estate companies with capital and financing advantages still dominate the land acquisition pattern.

Editor in charge: Li Xia