The new year has begun with renewed talk from Beijing of boosting consumption—that is, getting people to buy stuff—but all signs appear to be heading the other way. The latest news, for example, includes a continuation of the property sector slump with January sales figures from the 100 largest developers down 27% from a year earlier (a contraction of RMB 165.5 billion), while Vanke lost RMB 82 billion last year (a more than 65% bigger loss than last year).

The property sector is the main store of wealth for Chinese families and problems there cast a shadow over everything else. BYD share price fell to their lowest levels in a year due to a decline in EV sales after subsidies were cutback. At the same time, tech companies are fighting a fierce battle to win consumers over to their platforms by subsidizing their own products, with Alibaba committing a record RMB 3 billion to promote sales on its AI platform Qwen over the Lunar New Year period. As the BYD share price shows, subsidies are effective as a temporary Band-Aid, but do not solve the long-term issue.

Ironically, in the latest news the only silver lining is the silver economy—that is, old people. China’s largest private education company, New Oriental, announced that it is pivoting to providing education services to the elderly. Relying on 80-year-olds going back to school, however, is not necessarily a healthy way to build a long-term economy.

China Vanke said its largest shareholder is providing a RMB 2.36 billion ($339 million) loan to help it meet near-term debt repayment obligations, reports Caixin. This comes as it struggles to manage ongoing debts amid China’s prolonged property slump.

State-owned Shenzhen Metro Group is providing the three-year loan at an interest rate of 2.34%, according to a stock exchange filing on Tuesday. The railway operator has granted Vanke the option to repay early or negotiate further extensions if it faces continued liquidity difficulties.

On Tuesday, Vanke said it had secured bondholder approval to extend the maturities of two medium-term notes originally due in late 2025. After bondholders rejected initial proposals for a full one-year rollover without upfront repayment, Vanke revised its offers. The approved deals require the developer to pay 40% of the principal in cash, along with accrued interest, by late January, while extending the remaining 60% for one year.

China’s manufacturing powerhouse, Guangdong province, has reported a GDP growth rate of just 3.9% for 2025, falling short of the target for the province of 5%. While the figures have only been released for a few provinces/regions, Guangdong appears to be on the lower end. Manufacturing hubs Shandong and Zhejiang both announced 5.5%, while Shanghai and Beijing both reported 5.4%. 

According to Caixin, sluggish domestic demand and the real estate sector were the biggest drags on the province’s growth. Property’s contribution to the province’s GDP shrunk to just 7%—down from 11% in 2020 and 7.4% in 2024. It also pointed out that foreign trade from Guangdong “offered some cushion”—increasing 4.4% to RMB 9.5 trillion, which accounted for almost a quarter of all of China’s net trade growth.

Guangdong, and especially the city of Shenzhen which sits at the southern part of the province on the border of Hong Kong, has long been the shining star of China’s economy, producing many of the products exported around the world. It’s also home to many of China’s innovative tech companies—the ones that are promising to lead China into the future. While a more complete picture of China’s province-by-province growth is still yet to emerge, the poor performance of Guangdong suggests things are not rosey.

Premium office rents in Guangzhou dropped 10.1% in 2025, logging their sharpest annual decline since 2010, reports Caixin. This comes as cost-cutting firms vacated prime locations in favor of lower-priced alternatives.

The vacancy rate in the city climbed to 21.2% by the end of the year, up 2.4 percentage points, according to data released Tuesday by CBRE Group. Guangzhou’s slump reflects a broader retreat across China’s top-tier cities, where an influx of new supply is colliding with subdued corporate demand, says Caixin.

New supply of premium office space in Guangzhou surged 62.2% year-on-year to 551,000 square meters in 2025, while net absorption—defined as the total newly occupied space minus vacated space—slipped to 203,000 square meters. According to a separate analysis from Savills PLC, that’s 22% below the city’s five-year average.

Prices for existing homes in China’s four major cities continued to drop in December, reports Caixin, which says this is a sign that recovery remains elusive despite a slower pace of monthly declines.

Data released Monday by the National Bureau of Statistics showed that prices of second-hand homes in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen dropped 7% in December from a year earlier, deepening from a 5.8% annual drop the prior month. On a month-over-month basis, prices slipped 0.9%, moderating slightly from November’s steeper fall.

The numbers suggest the market remains under significant pressure even as the rate of price erosion appears to be easing.