(Yicai) Aug. 31 -- China is ushering in a completed-house sales era, requiring local governments to vigorously and orderly promote the sales of move-in-ready homes to achieve a "what you see is what you get" effect for buyers.

A policy document, jointly issued by the Ministry of Housing and Urban‑Rural Development, the Ministry of Natural Resources, and the State Administration of Financial Regulation on Aug. 28, urges local authorities to give priority to finished house sales on newly sold land, as well as those on land that has already been sold but has yet to receive construction planning permits.

Reforming the house sales system and strengthening presale funds supervision will help guide builders to reasonably set development and operation scales based on their capabilities, bolster risk awareness, abandon the extensive expansion model featuring "high debt, high leverage, and high turnover," and eliminate potential risks, the authorities said in a question-and-answer session with relevant officials on the People's Bank of China website.

For homebuyers, the biggest change under the new policy will be the gradual shift from "pay first, receive later" to "what you see is what you get," industry insiders told Yicai. However, the capital recovery cycles for developers will expand, forcing them to restructure their development and financing models, they pointed out.

Advancing sales system reform and introducing finished home sales will help optimize consumption patterns on the transaction side and improve product quality and sales security, Yan Yongjin, vice president of the Shanghai E‑House Real Estate Research Institute, said to Yicai.

"The real estate market is expected to enter a new development model underpinned by project‑based financing, completed‑house sales, and closed-loop fund supervision," a senior market practitioner told Yicai.

High leverage and turnover constituted normal industry practices under the long‑standing presale model, said Cui Ji, executive VP of the Shanghai E‑House Real Estate Research Institute. With the completed‑home sales scheme, developers will face longer capital recovery cycles, placing higher requirements on corporate capital strength, operational capacity, and building capabilities, Cui stressed.

Turnkey home sales will facilitate destocking in the new house market in the short run and support rebalancing of supply‑demand structures over the long term, said Li Yujia, chief researcher at the Guangdong Housing Policy Research Center. Such sales will lengthen the cycle from land acquisition to market launch to some extent, helping curb new supply growth, stabilize price expectations, and leave room for projects to clear stock, Li pointed out.

"In the long run, replacing homogenized off-plan properties with differentiated, high‑quality move-in-ready supply constitutes a lasting strategy for stabilizing the real‑estate market," Li noted.

Completed‑house sales can restore homebuyers' confidence, according to Zhang Bo, dean of the 58 Anjuke Research Institute. Online discussions on the platform show homebuyers' concerns about whether projects can be delivered on time continue to rise, but turnkey home sales directly address this core anxiety, Zhang said.

"Developers' core competitiveness will hinge more on delivery capacity and product strength in the future, with industry divergence among companies to continue," Zhang pointed out.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Martin Kadiev