On August 17 and 18, five public REITs received "registration approval" notices on the CSRC website within just two days. For a fund company, securing this approval is akin to obtaining a "birth certificate" for a new product. Since the start of 2026, a total of 20 public REITs have been approved, excluding follow-on offerings. The dense issuance of these "birth certificates" signals far more than an acceleration in the pipeline: highways, heating pipelines, hotels, shopping malls, affordable rental housing, and industrial parks are increasingly being placed on the securitization "shelf" and brought to the capital markets.

On one side, the approval process is hitting the accelerator; on the other, the secondary market continues to sink to new lows. On August 18, the same day three products made their listing debut, the CSI Public REITs Total Return Index dipped to 925.23 points intraday, marking a new low for the year. The simultaneous pressures of supply expansion and valuation compression paint a thought-provoking picture in the five-year history of China's public REITs market.

Five Approvals at Once, Each a "First"

The so-called "registration approval" represents the final regulatory hurdle before such products can go public. A public REIT must complete the full process—from project filing, exchange review, to CSRC registration approval—before it can formally launch its bookbuilding, issuance, and listing. Therefore, CSRC approvals have long been viewed as a "thermometer" for market supply pace: the more approvals issued, the more new products are set to hit the market in the near term.

As of August 30, 20 public REITs have been approved this year, with 10 newly listed products raising a combined 35.3 billion yuan.

Reviewing the August 17-18 approval list, Huatai Zijin Huazhu Anzhu Commercial REIT and Bosera Shandong Railway Bridge REIT led the way, followed by Ping An Xi'an Hi-Tech Industrial Park REIT, Shanxi Securities Jinzhong Gongtou Ruiyang Heating REIT, and Guotai Haitong CSC Rental Housing REIT.

Huatai Zijin Huazhu Anzhu Commercial REIT, approved on August 17, is the first hotel-type commercial real estate REIT on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and the first hotel public REIT led by a private hotel group in China. Managed by Huatai Securities (Shanghai) Asset Management, the fund has a contract term of 32 years and an expected fundraising scale of 1.239 billion yuan. The original equity holder is Shanghai Anzhu Cijian, an investment platform for hotels and apartments led by Huazhu Group. The underlying assets are three properties: the Mercure Hotel and JI Hotel near Tianhe Sports Center in Guangzhou, and the Crystal Orange Hotel in Shanghai's Jiangqiao Wanda Plaza—all located in core urban business districts and transportation hubs.

Bosera Shandong Railway Bridge REIT is the first public REIT in China to feature a cross-Yellow River bridge. Managed by Bosera Fund, the fund has an 18-year contract term and an issuance scale of approximately 1.189 billion yuan. The original equity holders include Shandong Railway Investment Group and two other parties. The underlying asset is the Jinan-Changqing Yellow River Highway Bridge, which connects Jinan and Dezhou. This bridge is a critical structure on the S105 Jinan-Liaocheng Highway crossing the Yellow River. Filed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in December 2025, it took about eight months from acceptance to approval.

Ping An Xi'an Hi-Tech Industrial Park REIT is the first industrial park public REIT in Shaanxi Province. Managed by Ping An Fund, the fund has a contract term of 40 years and a planned fundraising scale of 1.295 billion yuan. The underlying asset is Phase II of the Software New Town Software R&D Base in Xi'an Hi-Tech Zone, with a valuation of 1.293 billion yuan. As of the end of June, the overall occupancy rate of Phase II reached 88.33%, with tenants primarily in software development and IT services, including industry leaders such as Alibaba's Silk Road headquarters, Ant Technology, and iFlytek. Notably, during the inquiry phase, the project proactively reduced its valuation by 4.93%.

Shanxi Securities Jinzhong Gongtou Ruiyang Heating REIT fills the gap for public REITs in Shanxi Province. Managed by Shanxi Securities (Shanghai) Asset Management, the fund has a 22-year contract term. The underlying asset is the municipal heating pipeline network in Yuci District, Jinzhong City, covering a heating area of 12.1728 million square meters and serving 145,300 users, with residential users accounting for over 90%. The operator, Ruiyang Heating, holds a regional market share of 77.65%, with stable revenue of around 250 million yuan since 2023.

Guotai Haitong CSC Rental Housing REIT is the first rental housing REIT within the China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) system and the tenth affordable rental housing REIT in the market. Managed by Guotai Haitong Asset Management, the fund has a contract term of 62 years and an estimated project valuation of 1.314 billion yuan. The predicted net cash flow distribution rates for FY2026 and FY2027 are 4.04% and 4.05%, respectively. The initial asset is the CSC Zhongfu+ Apartment (Shanghai Songjiang), offering 2,432 affordable rental housing units—the largest affordable rental housing project in Songjiang District—which has been operational since 2021 and has already passed its incubation period. By the end of 2025, CSCEC held 36 rental housing projects.

Placing these five approvals in the context of 2026, which is now nearly eight months old, reveals the accelerating pace of REITs expansion. In March, the Oriental Hongtu Tunnel Expressway REIT and AVIC Beijing Changbao Rental Housing REIT took the lead. In April, E Fund Guangxi Beitou Expressway REIT and AVIC CNNC New Energy REIT were approved, with four commercial real estate REITs—CICC Vipshop, Harvest Shanghai Real Estate, Guotai Haitong Sartor, and CSC Financial ShouNong Food—all receiving approvals on April 24. In June, commercial products such as China Asset Management Poly Commercial REIT, Hua'an Jinjiang Commercial REIT, and Hua'an Lujiazui Commercial REIT were again approved in batches. The "five in a row" in August continues the trajectory of rising monthly approval density.

The acceleration in approvals is underpinned by regulatory reforms. In December 2025, the CSRC issued Document No. 63, "Notice on Promoting the High-Quality Development of the Real Estate Investment Trust (REITs) Market," and Announcement No. 21, officially launching the commercial real estate REITs pilot. This expands the issuance scope to include office buildings, shopping malls, and hotels, while significantly streamlining the review process, broadening the underlying asset pool from traditional infrastructure to a much wider spectrum.

Key points to watch: First, the first four REITs index funds were approved in June and established in July, bringing approximately 1.2 billion yuan in incremental capital to the market, which is expected to improve liquidity and drive resources toward high-quality leaders. Second, follow-on offering mechanisms continue to be optimized, with the application interval shortened from one year to six months. Bosera Shekou Industrial Park REIT is poised to become the first product to complete a second follow-on offering, gradually forming a dual-driver model of initial issuance and follow-on offerings.

94 Listed REITs Show Significant Yield Divergence

By the end of August, the total number of listed public REITs reached 94, with a combined scale of approximately 226.4 billion yuan. From the first batch of 31.4 billion yuan launched in June 2021, the public REITs market has evolved from exploratory pilots to normalized issuance over five years.

Why is the approval channel so efficient, and why are institutions rushing to enter against the trend? The dense flow of approvals is no accident. For China's economy, most infrastructure—highways, industrial parks, pipelines, and rental housing—has passed its peak construction period and entered an era of operation-focused, existing-asset management. REITs are the key to this era: original equity holders sell mature assets to public investors, recover capital in one go, and reinvest in new projects. Existing assets become new capital, forming a cycle of investment, operation, exit, and reinvestment. Ping An Fund noted that China's public REITs market has entered a new stage of normalized application and high-quality development, with an increasingly prominent role in revitalizing existing assets, closing the investment-financing loop, and fostering new quality productive forces.

Moreover, the average IRR of concession-type REITs is currently around 5.4%, significantly higher than the 10-year government bond yield. For managers, REITs have evolved from pilot tasks to yield-enhancing tools within fixed-income-plus and pension wealth management systems.

Public REITs income consists of two parts: cash flow from underlying asset distributions and capital gains from secondary market fluctuations. Distributions come from the institutional design. Regulators require REITs to distribute no less than 90% of distributable income annually in cash, far exceeding the dividend willingness of ordinary listed companies. In 2026, this high-distribution characteristic has been fully leveraged. To date, nearly 90% of listed REITs have implemented distributions this year, with cumulative payouts reaching 8.2 billion yuan.

Looking at year-to-date yields, CICC Shandong Hi-Speed Group Expressway REIT, China Merchants Fund Highway Expressway REIT, and China Asset Management China Communications Construction Expressway REIT rank in the top three, with yields of 15.37%, 13.49%, and 13.34%, respectively.

The top ten REITs by yield since listing include China Asset Management Shougang Outlets REIT, China Asset Management Beijing Affordable Housing REIT, CICC Xiamen Affordable Rental Housing REIT, Harvest Wumei Consumer REIT, Harvest China Power Construction Clean Energy REIT, China Asset Management Jinmao Consumer REIT, Guotai Haitong Jinan Energy Heating REIT, China Asset Management China Resources Consumer REIT, E Fund Huawei Farmers Market REIT, and Hongtu Innovation Shenzhen Anju REIT, with yields ranging between 47.21% and 77.12%.

In contrast, industrial park and logistics warehouse sectors have generally come under pressure this year, with some products falling over 40%. This divergence highlights the current structural nature of the REITs market: capital is favoring counter-cyclical assets with strong cash flow certainty, such as affordable rental housing, while remaining cautious on industrial parks and logistics warehouses with questionable fundamentals.

Of course, opportunities and challenges coexist. Since the start of 2026, the CSI REITs Total Return Index has fallen 5.4%, closing at 955.33 points, down 11.25% over the past year. The secondary market is under clear pressure, and some new products have even "broken issue price" on their listing days. New products experiencing first-day price breaks in 2026 include: AVIC CNNC New Energy REIT, listed on July 28, 2026, which fell 5.83% on its debut, marking the second first-day price break of the year; and Huatai Three Gorges New Energy REIT, listed on August 7, 2026, which fell nearly 3% intraday below issue price before recovering to close up 0.06%. Additionally, existing or semi-new products trading below issue price include Harvest Shanghai Real Estate Commercial REIT and CSC Financial ShouNong Commercial REIT.

Divergence in Underlying Assets Intensifies—What's Next?

According to China Chengxin Pengyuan's estimates, new public REITs issuance in 2026 could reach 99.062 billion yuan, 111.687 billion yuan, or 131.111 billion yuan under conservative, baseline, and optimistic scenarios, respectively. The baseline scenario represents a nearly 160% year-on-year increase over 2025's 43.878 billion yuan, with total annual scale conservatively expected to exceed 300 billion yuan. This supply volume already exceeds the annual issuance of the main board from 2023 to 2025 and is also significantly higher than the combined two-year issuance of the STAR Market and ChiNext Board from 2024 to 2025.

In terms of structure, commercial real estate has become the main driver of expansion. This year, nine commercial real estate REITs have been issued, raising approximately 20.3 billion yuan collectively. However, the operational dynamics of commercial real estate differ from traditional infrastructure. The former relies more heavily on rental income, leasing capabilities, and consumer conditions. Project value depends not only on location and scale but also on the refined operational capabilities of the managing entity.

Five years ago, when the first batch of nine products listed, the market questioned whether REITs could survive in China. Now, with 94 products and 226.4 billion yuan in scale, the question has shifted: of all these REITs, which are worth holding for a decade? Over the past year, the CSI REITs Total Return Index has fallen more than 11%. The market is pricing in the next round of divergence. Capital is voting with its feet, returning the true value of these "birth certificates" to the underlying assets themselves. While fund companies rush to expand their footprints, they must selectively choose high-quality underlying assets and strengthen operational management capabilities to win long-term investor trust in an increasingly divergent market.