Beijing's commercial property investment market saw a recovery last year, mainly driven by office, retail and logistic sectors, industry reports showed.
The capital recorded a total of 42.7 billion yuan ($5.85 billion) in the investment transactions for 2024, a slight increase compared to the previous year, according to a report by JLL, an international real estate agency. While statistics from CBRE, another international real estate service provider, showed that 46 deals were inked last year, with transaction value reaching 37.2 billion yuan, an increase of 12 percent year-on-year.
In the fourth quarter, Hitone Capital successfully sold its urban renewal project "Sanyuan NEO" located in Sanyuanqiao, with Golden Eagle (Asia) Group as the buyer. Additionally, Beijing Capital Eco-Pro Group announced its intention to acquire partial building ownership of Beijing Capital Development's "Shouchuang Xindadu" park through a cash transaction, with a transaction price of about 700 million yuan, according to JLL's report.
Meanwhile, small-scale transactions dominated the market in 2024, and there was an increasing trend in the number of foreclosure projects. In 2024, transactions valued at less than 500 million yuan accounted for one-third of the total transactions. Investment buyers continued their trend of returning to the market, with their proportion of transaction value rising to 80 percent, according to JLL. Statistics from CBRE also showed a similar trend: self-use buyers' proportion declined while institutional investors' proportion jumped to 51 percent from 24 percent last year.
"With the steady recovery of Beijing's commercial real estate market, investors are more optimistic about the capital's quality assets, especially those which could cash out through public REITs, such as retail, logistics and rental apartment sectors," said Li Hao, head of the investment and capital department of CBRE.
Thanks to the normalized issuance of public REITs, retail properties continued to attract widespread attention from investors.
"Despite the challenges faced by the commercial real estate market in 2024, we still saw domestic investors, especially insurance institutions, making frequent investments in retail and rental apartment categories," said Jessie Xu, operations director of China and head of Capital Markets North China, JLL.
"With the implementation of favorable policies for industrial and commercial land use, asset valuations are expected to receive a direct boost, which will continue to drive activity in the investment market in the future."
Dong Yilang contributed to this story
