Yuexiu acquires the racetrack land for 23.6 billion yuan, setting a new "ceiling" for the floor price per square meter in Guangzhou

Source: Securities Times Network Author: Wu Jiaming

The Spring Festival holiday just ended, and the Guangzhou land auction market has already become “hot.”

On February 25th, after more than 9 hours of fierce competition and 243 rounds of bidding, Yuexiu Group-controlled Guangzhou Yuechengda Co., Ltd. finally won the Guangzhou Racecourse Land Parcel (Phase I) with a total price of approximately 23.6 billion yuan.

According to the announcement, the entire Phase I land parcel covers a total area of about 194,500 square meters, with a total construction area of approximately 566,900 square meters, including commercial land, other transportation facilities land, second-class residential land, primary and secondary school land, etc. The starting bid was about 18.64 billion yuan. Geographically, the Racecourse Land Parcel is located in the East District of Zhujiang New Town and is called the last “treasure land” in Zhujiang New Town. Industry insiders believe that this land is the most core, largest, and most diverse in terms of business formats among Guangzhou’s land auctions over the years, so it attracted high market attention immediately after listing.

Thanks to the advantageous location and forward-looking planning of the land, eight leading real estate companies including Yuexiu, Poly, China Resources, and China Merchants actively participated in the bidding. Meanwhile, the bidding process was extremely heated, with rapid bidding pace after the auction started, reaching nearly 60 rounds in less than an hour. Notably, market reports indicate that during the auction, the number of spectators exceeded 100,000, causing the transaction platform’s server to crash temporarily. The transaction’s floor price broke Guangzhou’s land auction record. In terms of total price, this land parcel ranks second in Guangzhou’s land auction history, only behind the Yuying City land parcel at 25.5 billion yuan.

Apart from Guangzhou, several key cities recently held their first land auctions of the Year of the Horse. On February 25th, Wuhan’s first land auction of the year concluded successfully, with two parcels sold, raising a total of 281.46 million yuan.

Cao Jingjing, General Manager of the Index Research Department at China Index Academy, pointed out that in recent years, the land parcels launched in key cities have significantly reduced the requirements for supporting facilities, and land quality has improved markedly. The removal of price caps has given enterprises more profit margin opportunities, naturally increasing their enthusiasm for acquiring land. However, she also noted that this situation only exists in core areas of hot cities. As real estate companies focus their strategies, transactions in non-core areas are relatively dull, and their willingness to participate in bidding in third- and fourth-tier cities remains weak. Overall, the land market’s volume and price performance are relatively stable.

However, Tao Shuru, Research Director at China Index Academy, stated that in 2025, real estate companies’ enthusiasm for replenishing their land reserves has increased, with the top 100 companies’ total land acquisition reaching 964 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.9%. Tao believes this growth is mainly driven by two factors: to stabilize the land market, many regions have introduced favorable policies, and the quality of land supply continues to improve, boosting companies’ willingness to acquire land; on the other hand, in recent years, real estate companies have been less active in land acquisition, with existing stock land nearly exhausted, so they are actively replenishing at this favorable time. In terms of bidding enthusiasm, the trend shows a “high first, then low” pattern, with the first three quarters seeing a year-on-year increase of over 30%, while the fourth quarter experienced fewer land auctions.

CRIC Real Estate Research released a report stating that looking ahead to 2026, given that the long-term supply and demand in the industry have achieved a dynamic improvement, coupled with the promotion of repurchasing and re-listing idle stock land, as well as land element upgrades brought by urban renewal, the land market is expected to see more signals of stabilization.

(Edited by: Wen Jing)

Keywords: Yuexiu