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This report (chinatimes.net.cn) reporter Zhang Bei and Huang Zhinan reported from Shenzhen.
&#34;The road to transformation has its challenges, but dawn has arrived, and the light is ahead.&#34; Yang Jin, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of CITIC Urban Development and Operation Co., Ltd., stated during a speech at the 2026 Perspective Annual Forum.
Yang Jin frankly stated, &#34;The real estate industry has reached a historical juncture where it shifts from incremental expansion to improving existing stock. The extensive growth model has already failed, and the core competitiveness of real estate companies will shift to six core capabilities such as model innovation and product development.&#34;
Facing the industry's dilemma of &#34;worries in progress and worries in retreat,&#34; Yang Jin systematically disclosed CITIC Urban Development's transformation path centered on &#34;exploring new models, creating new products, applying new technologies, and building new ecosystems,&#34; referred to as the &#34;Four News.&#34;
New Logic in the Era of Existing Stock
&#34;We are currently in an unprecedented dilemma.&#34; Yang Jin pointed out the survival difficulties faced by the entire industry in his speech. The core of this dilemma is the ultimate choice that real estate companies cannot avoid during the market downturn: preserve cash flow or preserve profits.
In Yang Jin's description, this dilemma is embodied in the common situation of the industry. A large amount of funds for real estate companies is solidified in land and property assets, and during the market downturn, sales are hindered. If liquidity is not accelerated through discounted sales, companies will face the risk of defaults; however, if large-scale promotions are conducted at discounted prices, the cash inflow will directly erode the company's profits and financial statement quality, leading to a decline in EBITDA and an increase in leverage, putting dual pressure on operations and finances.
Even CITIC Urban Development has not been able to remain unscathed during the industry's downturn—between 2022 and 2024, the company experienced consecutive losses due to collective asset impairment, only achieving profitability in 2025.
&#34;Repair the roof when it's sunny, rather than waiting for the storm to leak before responding.&#34; Yang Jin quoted the viewpoint of Guo Guangchang, Chairman of Fosun International, stating that this dilemma is not caused by short-term market fluctuations but is an inevitable result of the complete reconstruction of the industry's underlying logic.
The Central Urban Work Conference has made it clear that urban development in our country has fully shifted from large-scale incremental expansion to a new stage of improving existing stock and enhancing efficiency, which means that the growth logic that the real estate industry has relied on for the past thirty years has fundamentally changed.
In his speech, Yang Jin reviewed the old growth model of the industry. In the past, real estate companies achieved rapid scale expansion through high debt, high leverage, and high turnover, with growth momentum highly dependent on land dividends and market premiums. The core competitiveness was merely the premium of land, the premium of houses, and the premium of brands.
However, in the era of existing stock, this extensive growth model has come to an end, and the focus of industry development has fully shifted to optimizing incremental growth and revitalizing existing stock. The tracks supported by national policies, such as urban renewal, village reconstruction, affordable housing construction, and the construction of &#34;good houses,&#34; will become the main battlefield for value creation in the future real estate sector
Despite the industry still being in a deep adjustment cycle, Yang Jin has a clear judgment on the long-term development of the industry. He believes that the three core attributes of the real estate industry have not changed.
&#34;The first affects financial security, the second benefits people's livelihoods, and the third links numerous upstream and downstream industries. The two engines of urbanization and consumption upgrading will continue to drive the industry forward,&#34; Yang Jin further analyzed. Against the backdrop of sustained policy efforts, market expectations have shown significant recovery from the pessimistic state of one or two years ago, and the mainstream view in the industry believes that the market will stabilize between the end of 2026 and the beginning of 2027.
More importantly, Yang Jin clarified the reconstruction direction of the core competitiveness of real estate companies in the new cycle during his speech. He bluntly stated that the competition in the future real estate industry will no longer be about the speed of land acquisition and the size of scale, but rather the company's ability to create value, specifically broken down into six core capabilities: the ability for model innovation, product development, financial design, resource integration, technology application, and operational efficiency improvement.
&#34;Real estate companies urgently need to complete the transition from developers to comprehensive urban operators,&#34; Yang Jin's judgment also delineates the core direction for CITIC Urban Development's own transformation practice.
&#34;Four News&#34; Breakthrough
As the core real estate platform of CITIC Group's new urbanization sector, CITIC Urban Development's transformation path fully aligns with its underlying judgment on the new cycle of the industry.
Relying on CITIC Group's &#34;finance + industry&#34; synergy advantage, CITIC Urban Development has established a dual-driven business pattern of &#34;development + operation,&#34; focusing on four major tracks: risk resolution, urban renewal, core asset investment, and quality asset operation. With innovationism, long-termism, productism, and serviceism as the underlying logic, it has constructed a &#34;Four News&#34; transformation system of &#34;exploring new models, creating new products, applying new technologies, and building new ecosystems,&#34; accurately responding to the new cycle's requirements for the six core capabilities of real estate companies.
The exploration of new models is the core lever of CITIC Urban Development's transformation and its core solution to break the industry's dilemma. The most benchmark-worthy aspect of this is its innovatively created risk resolution model of &#34;financial support + risk isolation + asset management.&#34;
Yang Jin detailed the core logic of this model in his speech: the first step is to introduce incremental funds for at-risk projects, sourced from incremental credit from existing creditors, co-benefit bonds from AMC institutions, and CITIC Urban Development's own funds; the second step is to build a special risk isolation structure to ensure that the incremental funds operate in a closed manner within the asset package, achieving complete isolation from the original entity's risks; the third and most critical step is for CITIC Urban Development to enter the scene to manage operations, output development management capabilities, and provide specialized services such as construction agency, supervision, and entrusted operation, promoting unfinished projects to form effective assets, ultimately recouping funds through diversified paths of sales, holding, operation, and disposal, completing risk resolution.
This model has been scaled and validated within the industry, and the rescue cooperation between CITIC Urban Development and Kaisa Group is a typical case of this model's implementation.
As of now, this risk resolution model has been implemented in over 30 projects across more than a dozen cities nationwide, managing a value of over 200 billion yuan
The creation of new products is the core vehicle for CITIC Urban Development to optimize incremental growth and practice the &#34;good housing&#34; orientation. Yang Jin disclosed in his speech that CITIC Urban Development closely adheres to the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development's requirements for &#34;good housing,&#34; and has released the product value concept of &#34;good living environment, good building quality, good layout design, good operation management, high intelligence level, and comprehensive value-added services,&#34; known as the &#34;Four Goods, One High, and One Complete.&#34; This has formed a complete product standard system that includes six methods, 18 volumes, 108 rules, and 1,280 specific technical items, comprehensively covering the entire residential product line of rigid demand, improvement, and high-end.
In addition to new models and new products, CITIC Urban Development empowers the entire business cycle with new technologies and builds long-term competitive barriers through a new ecosystem.
In terms of technology application, CITIC Urban Development covers the entire chain of construction, products, and operations with digital, intelligent, and green technologies: on the construction side, it applies technologies such as digital twins and intelligent building machines to achieve visualization, efficiency, and safety in construction; on the product side, it integrates systems such as low-carbon shading, whole-house water purification, and intelligent IoT to enhance living comfort and energy-saving levels; on the operation side, it uses AI technology to assist in market and customer judgment while expanding into new parking lot sectors, relying on funds to obtain asset franchise rights and exploring stable cash flow through refined operations that are resistant to economic cycles.
&#34;Uphold the bottom line with professionalism, break through difficulties with innovation, and create the future through collaboration, promoting the industry to grow upwards and walk towards goodness,&#34; Yang Jin called at the end of his speech

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Yang Jin, Chairman of CITIC Urban Development and Operation Co., Ltd., pointed out at the 2026 Perspective Annual Forum that the real estate industry is facing the challenge of transforming from incremental expansion to improving existing stock. He emphasized that companies need to make choices between cash flow and profit, as the current market downturn has put real estate enterprises in a survival dilemma. Yang Jin proposed a "Four New" transformation path centered on "exploring new models, creating new products, utilizing new technologies, and building new ecosystems" to respond to fundamental changes in the industry

腾讯新闻 - 财经

Yinhua CSI Interior Real Estate Theme ETF

China Southern CSI All Share Real Estate ETF

CITIC

In a dilemma, should we protect cash flow or profits? Yang Jin, Chairman of CITIC City Construction, proposed a new model for risk resolution at the 2026 Annual Forum