Student Question
Hello, Master. The era of rapid residential development feels like it’s behind us now. Real estate is entering a phase of contraction — fewer projects, slower growth, falling prices. In terms of residential investment, making quick money is getting harder by the day.
Looking ahead, beyond residential properties, what other areas in real estate are worth paying attention to? How do we find our footing again and reposition ourselves?
Master Chi’s Response
Beyond residential, the areas worth watching include office, commercial, hospitality, warehousing, healthcare, logistics, and public property management.
The truth is, enterprises today are facing enormous pressure.
The core question is this: do you keep racing ahead with the mindset of the high-growth development era — chasing high land prices, high housing prices, and high turnover — or do you pivot toward the seven major property categories and commit to deep operational excellence within specific projects, building real value over time?
We need to step outside, observe, and learn from more mature markets to find our answers.
In the past, we mostly looked West — particularly to the United States. The American real estate market offered genuinely advanced experience, especially in proptech innovation. Take blockchain applications in real estate, for example. These innovations have blurred the line between private and public space, raised utilization rates, and delivered a better experience for end users.
But beyond looking West, we can also look South.
I’ve personally visited Singapore. What’s remarkable there is how they’ve developed a city in an extremely limited footprint — something akin to what we’ve previously called the vertical city. Another thing that stands out about Singapore is the HDB (public housing) system: the government shoulders 80% of the responsibility for housing ordinary citizens, leaving just 20% to the market. This arrangement has done an excellent job of balancing the majority’s housing needs against the minority’s market. It’s been a cornerstone of Singapore’s economic and social stability.
Then there’s looking East — to Japan, our neighbor. Japan sprinted through its own development era during its post-war economic boom.
In Japan’s post-development real estate landscape, there is much worth studying carefully.
Take Tokyo’s urban renewal as an example. Tokyo is an extraordinarily dense city — the Greater Tokyo Area holds nearly 40 million people. How do you renew a city at that density without resorting to massive demolition and reconstruction? How do you let a city grow organically — neither growing through destruction, nor destroying in the name of development?
There is a great deal there worth learning from.