Recently, many regions across the country have intensively introduced policies to support the real estate market, combined with measures such as lowering the loan market quoted interest rate (LPR), increasing the amount of housing provident fund loans, and expanding the scope of use, forming a policy combination punch to release benefits for the first-time homebuyers, and the real estate market has also shown positive signals. On May 8th, the central bank lowered the interest rate for personal housing provident fund loans by 0.25 percentage points, and adjusted the interest rates for first-time and second home provident fund loans over 5 years from 2.85% and 3.325% to 2.6% and 3.075%, respectively. On May 20, the People's Bank of China authorized the National Interbank Funding Center to publish the latest loan market quotation rate (LPR). The 1-year LPR and the 5-year and above LPR were both reduced by 10 basis points, from 3.10% and 3.60% to 3.00% and 3.50% respectively. This is the first adjustment of LPR this year, 7 months after the last adjustment. After the adjustment, both the first and second installment incremental mortgage loans will be reduced by 0.1 percentage points. Taking a personal mortgage loan with a principal of 1 million yuan, a 30-year term, and equal principal and interest as an example, the adjusted monthly payment will be reduced by about 56 yuan, and the cumulative interest will be reduced by about 20000 yuan. This measure directly reduces the cost of purchasing a house, which is undoubtedly a great benefit for the first-time homebuyers. The Zhongzhi Research Institute stated that overall, the recent decrease in housing provident fund loan interest rates and the reduction of LPR for more than 5 years will further reduce the cost of home purchases for homebuyers, support the release of residents' housing demand, and play a positive role in consolidating the stability of the real estate market. In addition, the Governor of the People's Bank of China, Pan Gongsheng, previously pointed out that "based on the economic and financial operation and the effectiveness of various tools, the scale of tools can be expanded and the policy elements of tools can be improved. It is expected that more financial policies to support the real estate market will continue to be implemented in the future, such as financial policies that are complementary to the sale of existing houses, and providing supporting funds for urban renewal, "said the research institute. In order to further support first-time homebuyers, the housing provident fund policies in many places have also undergone new adjustments. Shanghai, Shenyang and other places have explicitly included flexible employment personnel such as individual industrial and commercial households and freelancers in the scope of housing provident fund contributions. Flexible employment personnel can also enjoy multiple rights and benefits such as the "multi child family provident fund loan support policy" in principle. Wuhan has made adjustments to its housing provident fund loan policy, raising the maximum loan amount for the second individual housing provident fund from 1 million yuan to 1.2 million yuan, consistent with the first home. In addition, Beijing, Xi'an, Kunming, Qingdao and other places have generally extended the upper limit of loan maturity age to 68 years for males and 63 years for females, in coordination with the national gradual delayed retirement policy. The repayment period has been extended by an additional 3 years, which helps to continuously reduce loan costs. Driven by favorable policies, real estate sales have stabilized, and the real estate market has also shown positive signals. From the data, the sales area of newly-built commercial housing decreased by 2.8% from January to April, a decrease of 0.2 percentage points narrower than from January to March. From the situation of 40 key cities, the sales area and sales revenue of newly-built commercial residential properties increased by 0.1% and 2% respectively year-on-year from January to April. From a month on month perspective, in April, among 70 large and medium-sized cities, the sales prices of newly-built residential properties in first and second tier cities remained unchanged, while those in third tier cities slightly decreased. From a year-on-year perspective, in April, among the 70 large and medium-sized cities, the year-on-year decline in the sales prices of residential properties in various tier cities continued to narrow. Among them, the sales prices of newly-built commercial residential properties in first, second, and third tier cities narrowed by 0.7, 0.5, and 0.3 percentage points year-on-year, respectively; The sales prices of second-hand residential properties narrowed by 0.9, 0.5, and 0.4 percentage points year-on-year. Real estate inventory and new construction have improved. With the recovery of real estate sales, the inventory of commercial housing in real estate enterprises has decreased, and the construction progress has improved. At the end of April, the area of unsold commercial housing continued to decrease compared to the end of March, decreasing for two consecutive months. From January to April, the year-on-year decline in newly started housing construction in China narrowed by 0.6 percentage points compared to January to March. On May 7th, the latest data from CRIC Real Estate Research Center showed that the monthly investment amount (full caliber) of 30 key monitored real estate companies in April 2025 reached 87.6 billion yuan, an increase of nearly 100% year-on-year and 6.5% month on month, showing a strong recovery trend. From the perspective of land transactions, according to data from CRIC, the scale of new land reserves of 30 typical real estate companies significantly expanded in April 2025. The newly added land construction area reached 3.47 million square meters in that month, an increase of 15.67% compared to March's 3 million square meters; The corresponding total transaction price climbed to 87.6 billion yuan, with a month on month increase of 6.5%. From the situation in April, the real estate market transactions and prices were basically stable, and the trading activity in some first and second tier cities has increased. ”Fu Linghui, spokesperson for the National Bureau of Statistics and director of the Department of Comprehensive Statistics of the National Economy, pointed out that since the beginning of this year, the policy effects have continued to show, and the real estate market continues to move towards stabilizing and stopping the decline. (New Society)