National Bureau of Statistics data shows that from January to August 2025, China's newly-built commercial housing sales area and sales revenue declined by 4.7% and 7.3% year-on-year respectively. In western regions, these figures also dropped by 3.2% and 5.8%. However, at Yunnan Province's urban work conference on October 11, Yunnan Provincial Party Secretary Wang Ning proposed to continue vigorously developing real estate, considering it a key driver for the province's economic development.

Where does Yunnan's confidence in real estate come from? The answer may be surprising.

**Low Urbanization Rate Creates Late-Mover Opportunities**

By the end of 2024, only two regions among China's 31 provinces had urbanization rates below 55%, with Yunnan being one of them. But this allows Yunnan to see "late-mover opportunities."

At Yunnan Province's urban work conference on October 11, Provincial Party Secretary Wang Ning pointed out that if Yunnan's urbanization rate could increase from 54.11% at the end of 2024 to 65% by 2035, it could potentially drive nearly 400 billion yuan in new investment and consumption.

"Whether we can seize this opportunity depends critically on real estate," Wang Ning stated at the conference.

Yunnan's confidence in real estate's future comes from out-of-province buyers. According to reports on October 3, 2025, people from outside Yunnan purchased 43,000 commercial housing units this year, accounting for 33.5% of the province's total sales, reaching a record high for the same period. This drove Yunnan's commercial housing sales area growth rate 9.2 percentage points higher than the national average, and real estate development investment growth rate 10.1 percentage points above the national average.

This situation didn't just emerge this year. Since 2022, the proportion of out-of-province buyers has continued to climb: 24.8% in 2022, reaching 30.6% and 31.1% in 2023 and 2024 respectively, and 31.7% in the first nine months of 2025.

Some popular cities have even higher proportions: Xishuangbanna at 75%, Baoshan at 46.2%, Chuxiong at 43.6%, and Lijiang at 41.8%. Some areas exceed 80%, such as Yuanmou County at 89% and Yongren County at 83.5%.

What factors attract out-of-province buyers to Yunnan? At the aforementioned conference, Wang Ning pointed out that Yunnan has ecological and resource advantages. Ecological advantages are concentrated in Yunnan's "beautiful mountains, clear waters, and fresh air" – average summer temperatures not exceeding 30 degrees Celsius, with most places warm as spring in winter. Resource advantages include green energy, mineral resources, plateau specialty agriculture, cultural tourism resources, and biological resources.

**Residential Tourism Brings Substantial Economic Benefits**

Yunnan faces real pressure regarding urbanization rates. Data from the "China Statistical Yearbook 2024" shows that among 31 provinces, eight regions had urbanization rates below 60% in 2023, ranked from high to low: Sichuan (59.49%), Xinjiang (59.24%), Henan (58.08%), Guangxi (56.78%), Guizhou (55.94%), Gansu (55.49%), Yunnan (52.92%), and Tibet (38.88%).

With Sichuan and Xinjiang's urbanization rates breaking through 60% in 2024, and Henan likely reaching this standard by the end of 2025, only five regions among the 31 provinces will remain below 60%.

For Yunnan's actual situation, further improving urbanization rates still focuses on promoting the citizenization of agricultural transfer population, with creating more employment opportunities being one of the measures.

As a major tourism province, Yunnan received 700 million tourists in 2024, with total tourism spending reaching 1.14 trillion yuan. Tourism and related industries' added value accounted for over 7% of regional GDP, with numerous jobs created in tourism economic activities.

Wang Ning also mentioned at the conference that Simao District in Pu'er City has an urbanization rate as high as 80%, partly because it leveraged resource advantages like Pu'er tea and coffee to vigorously develop green food processing and health tourism residential industries, creating numerous jobs and attracting many people to cities.

More importantly, compared to tourism's short-cycle behavior, residential tourism brings more substantial economic benefits to a region. In 2024, Yunnan received 700 million tourists with per capita consumption of 1,628.57 yuan. The "Yangtze River Delta Residential Tourism in Yunnan Market Report" shows that as Yunnan's largest source market for residential tourism, the Yangtze River Delta region's long-stay tourists have strong spending power, with per capita consumption exceeding 10,000 yuan, not including housing purchases.

Particularly in Shanghai's market, in the first half of 2025, 43,200 people traveled from Shanghai to Yunnan for residential tourism, a 33.3% year-on-year increase.

**Next Five Years Will Be a Crucial Opportunity Period**

In 2024, Yunnan received 700 million tourists, of which 3.8975 million were residential tourists. In other words, out of every 1,000 tourists, 5.6 chose residential tourism.

Therefore, starting from 2025, Yunnan has further promoted its "Residential Tourism in Yunnan" brand. How much does this province value "residential tourism"? Through keyword searches of the WeChat public account "Yunnan Release," over 100 articles with "residential tourism" in the title were found between January 1 and October 14, 2025. It can be said that all of Yunnan is vigorously developing residential tourism.

The results are very apparent. In the first half of 2025, Yunnan received 2.8 million residential tourists, a 45.4% year-on-year increase. Residential tourists stayed an average of 91 days in Yunnan, 11 days longer year-on-year. By the end of August, residential tourists increased to 3.801 million, approaching last year's full-year level.

Wang Ning also emphasized at the conference that Yunnan's future real estate development and sales cannot focus solely on its own market, but must also see national demand, strengthening promotion, introduction, and marketing nationwide.

For Yunnan, the influx of numerous residential tourists brings tangible benefits to local economic development, but also challenges Yunnan's public service supply capacity, especially in transportation and medical resources.

Yunnan has also noticed this point. In June this year, the "Positive and Negative List for Yunnan Province's Residential Tourism Development" issued by the Yunnan Provincial Government General Office clearly stated that Yunnan should highlight host-guest sharing, focusing on local residents' and residential tourists' needs to improve infrastructure completeness, public service convenience, and living environment comfort.

Various cities in Yunnan, besides "going out" to promote ecological and resource advantages, have emphasized public service capabilities. For example, when Baoshan City promotes itself externally, it mentions that the city's two airports have 21 daily flights on average serving 13 cities, Baoshan Station operates 10 pairs of high-speed trains and 2 pairs of regular trains daily, the city has 8 tertiary hospitals, and is also a "National Civilized City."

For the future, at the aforementioned conference, Wang Ning gave a basic judgment: the next 3 to 5 years will be a crucial opportunity period for Yunnan to accelerate urban development. He pointed out that Yunnan must maintain confidence and work pragmatically to launch a new round of urban construction climax, pushing the province's urban development to a new level.