Are Hong Kong People Flocking to Zhongshan for Retirement?

On September 17, the Zhongshan Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau officially launched the 2025 mass marketing campaign targeting the Hong Kong and Macau markets, while also expanding the reward scope of the 2025 "New Zhongshan Residents Settle in Zhongshan" initiative.

Mass marketing is a property sales method that breaks from traditional real estate models. Its core logic involves extending referral commissions from professional groups to the general public, leveraging personal networks to attract customers to real estate projects and ultimately drive transactions.

According to the notice, from September 17, 2025, to March 31, 2026, any referrer who successfully recommends a Hong Kong or Macau resident to purchase a newly built commercial property (residential, apartment, or commercial office) in Zhongshan will receive a cash reward of 1% (pre-tax) of the invoice amount from the Zhongshan Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau. Additionally, real estate developers will provide a cash reward of no less than 2% (pre-tax) of the invoice amount. Based on this, successful referrers can receive at least a total of 3% cash reward.

Since the 1990s, Zhongshan has been a popular "hometown return" property investment city for Hong Kong and Macau residents. According to the "Zhongshan City Records," in 2005, Zhongshan was home to 800,000 overseas Chinese, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan compatriots, including 388,800 from Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. Additionally, as reported by Zhongshan Daily in March 2024, both Macau and Zhongshan were historically part of Xiangshan County, and today, over a quarter of Macau’s population traces their ancestry to Zhongshan.

Compared to Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong, and Zhuhai, which borders Macau, Zhongshan offers lower property costs. Furthermore, due to geographical proximity, cultural similarities, well-developed urban amenities, and transportation advantages, Zhongshan has also attracted a significant number of non-ancestral Hong Kong and Macau residents to purchase properties.
The average online signing price was 12,200 yuan/square meter, down 5.54% year-on-year but up 7.22% month-on-month; the inventory destocking cycle increased by 0.08 months month-on-month to 31.34 months.