Real estate brands emerged relatively unscathed from the economic fallout of COVID-19, with the total brand value of the Brand Finance Real Estate 25 2021 ranking increasing by 8% year-on-year to US$164.3 billion in 2021. Chinese brands continue to dominate the real estate sector, also claiming an additional two spots in this year’s ranking. This takes the total number of Chinese real estate brands to 23 out of 25, or 97% of the ranking’s total brand value at US$159.4 billion. The remaining two spots belong to US-based Brookfield Property Partners (down 5% to US$2.8 billion) and CBRE (down 12% to US$2.8 billion) in 19th and 20th, respectively.

While China was the first country to bear the brunt of the virus, the nation was the only major economy in the world to avoid a contraction in 2020, with its full-year GDP expanding just over 2%. Additionally, China’s output leapt nearly 20% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2021, the fastest known rate since records began in the 1990s. A combination of high demand, ever-growing population and consistent government intervention has enabled the Chinese property market to thrive – even under the most strenuous of conditions – with real estate investment across the country since returning to pre-COVID levels, and infrastructure and manufacturing investment also rebounding thanks to healthy export growth.