(Yicai) Dec. 30 -- Chinese property developers' pressure to deliver prepaid residential housing is expected to lessen next year, an insider at a private property firm told Yicai.

Last year, a huge number of new homes were completed, the insider said, adding that even though builders deemed timely construction a top priority this year, delivery has declined to some extent due to decreasing sales over the past two years.

China's real estate crisis began after heavily indebted property giants such as China Evergrande Group defaulted on bond repayments in 2021 while work on several pre-sold projects halted. Delivery accelerated since 2022 alongside slowing sales.

Industry giant Country Garden delivered about one million apartments in the past two years, according to Chairwoman Yang Huiyan.

Longfor Group disclosed to Yicai that it has delivered over 120 projects across 43 Chinese cities this year, with a fifth of the projects handed over more than one month ahead of schedule.

CIFI Holdings delivered over 48,000 new apartments across 45 Chinese cities in the first 11 months, according to the Hong Kong-based firm. Nationwide, it has 74 projects included in the government's whitelist, with 53 of them already funded. The whitelist program was initiated in January to ease access to financing and help builders gain buyer confidence.

Huafu Securities said that China's property sector as a whole is seeing a gradual easing of credit risks, with the continuous advancement of the whitelist system and a decline in property developers' maturing debts.

Ni Hong, minister of housing and urban-rural development, disclosed on Dec. 25 that nationwide delivery of new housing had reached 3.4 million units this year. Projects included in China's property whitelist have been granted CNY3.6 trillion (USD493.2 billion) in loans as of Nov. 18, and the sum is expected to top CNY4 trillion by year-end.

As of Nov. 13, six cities, including Jiangxi province's Xinyu and Gansu's Jinchang, fulfilled their promises of completing projects with delivery guarantees on time, according to the ministry. More than 90 percent of such projects in Fujian province's Xiamen, Hubei province's Ezhou, and 22 other cities did the same.

Editors: Shi Yi, Emmi Laine