China has issued new guidelines to extend its “quality housing” initiative to existing homes, aiming to improve safety, comfort, and energy efficiency and shift focus from new construction to ensuring older housing remains livable and well-maintained.
On December 31, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development issued the Guidelines on Improving Housing Quality, proposing to “implement a housing quality improvement project, taking into account both new construction and renovation of existing stock.”
Regarding the 2030 targets, the ministry requires that “significant progress be made in transforming old housing into ‘quality housing.’” This means that the scope of “quality housing” now covers the updating of existing housing and the long-term quality of use.
The term “quality housing” is not new. The 2025 Government Work Report proposed promoting the construction of “safe, comfortable, green, and smart quality housing.” Since then, this expression has repeatedly appeared in important meetings and policy documents. In its early context, the main focus of “quality housing” was newly built commercial housing, while improvements to existing housing were mainly advanced through targeted projects such as the renovation of old communities and urban renewal.
The newly issued Guidelines repeatedly mention existing housing, clearly proposing to simultaneously promote systematic improvements in structural safety, functional use, residential comfort, and green and low-carbon standards within the stock of existing housing. Existing housing is incorporated together with new housing into the overall framework for improving housing quality.
At the task level, the Guidelines call for the steady advancement of urban village and dilapidated housing renovations, the continued upgrading of old urban communities, and the coordinated implementation of energy-saving retrofits for existing housing. At the facilities level, the document emphasizes accelerating upgrades to gas, water, heating, drainage, and fire protection pipelines, modernizing residents’ water pressure regulation and storage systems, and installing in-home gas safety devices and heating meters.
Unlike earlier renovations of old communities, which primarily emphasized repairs and hazard remediation, the provisions in the Guidelines for existing housing signal a more engineering-driven, systematic approach to quality improvement. The objective is no longer simply to “eliminate hazards” but to enhance the long-term performance of existing housing in terms of safety, functionality, and efficiency.
This shift is closely linked to changes in the commercial housing market. Nationwide, the construction of new commercial housing continues to decline, while many residential buildings built around 2000 are entering a stage of aging infrastructure. As a result, residents’ priorities are gradually moving from “buying a new home” to “improving the quality of existing housing.”
In many cities, housing complaints are centered on problems such as poor sound insulation, high energy consumption, inadequate public spaces, and a lack of facilities for the aging population. These issues cannot be fully addressed through simple repairs or isolated renovation projects. Disjointed approaches to improving existing housing have exposed shortcomings, including limited renovation coverage and depth, as well as a lack of institutional coordination between targeted interventions and routine housing maintenance.
The new Guidelines do not limit existing housing renovations to government-led initiatives but advocate multiple parallel approaches. The document encourages strategies such as replacing old structures with new ones, rebuilding in place, and modular construction. It also supports residents in independently upgrading their homes and promotes prefabricated interior renovations to shorten renovation cycles, minimize construction disruptions, and improve efficiency. This signals that efforts to enhance the quality of existing housing will increasingly incorporate market-driven and resident-led approaches.
Beyond construction and renovation, the guidelines integrate existing housing into a long-term management framework. The document calls for establishing a life-cycle safety management system, creating a dynamic platform for updating residential building information and tracking hazard elimination, and implementing measures to improve property management quality. Where feasible, it also encourages extending property services to include elderly care, childcare, meal support, and other daily living services.
This indicates that the focus of housing policy is shifting from “building houses well” to “ensuring houses are used and managed well over the long term.”
The Guidelines remain a principle-based document and have not yet set quantitative indicators for existing housing to meet “quality housing” standards. Relevant standards and implementation pathways will need to be further detailed by local authorities based on actual conditions.