Top-Tier Cities' Housing Market Exceeds Expectations in 'Silver October', Second-Hand Homes Outperform New Ones

Since the end of September, various regions have successively introduced new policies for the real estate market, launching a policy "combination punch" of "reducing costs, lowering thresholds, and raising expectations." Under the stimulus of these policies, the performance of the first-tier cities in "Silver October" has exceeded expectations.

Reporters have learned that, from the market response, the recovery of the second-hand housing market in the four first-tier cities is better than that of new houses. Among them, it is expected that the actual transactions of second-hand houses in Beijing in October will reach 25,000 units, setting a new high since 2017.

The heat of new houses in first-tier cities has increased.

On October 27, Sunac China launched the second phase of the third batch of houses at the One Mansion on the Bund in Shanghai, with 158 housing units sold out on the same day. So far, the project has been launched three times and sold out three times, with a total sales amount of 21.5 billion yuan, becoming the second single-plate project in Shanghai this year with sales breaking through 20 billion yuan.

An industry analyst pointed out that since the end of September, the real estate market has continuously introduced favorable policies, which have indeed effectively stimulated housing demand and further boosted market confidence. "The location advantage of the Bund One Mansion project is obvious, and it is expected to be sold out three times."

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Data from the market agency CRIC shows that this year, Shanghai has significantly increased the supply of high-end plates. In the first three quarters, the transaction of top luxury houses with a unit price of more than 150,000 yuan has surged, with a transaction of 2,004 units, which is 5.5 times that of last year's whole year, and 500 units more than the total transactions of the past four years at this unit price.

According to the monitoring of the China Index Academy, since October (as of the 26th), the transaction area of first-tier cities has shown a significant increase both year-on-year and month-on-month, with an increase of 45.69% and 11.58% respectively.

Looking at the cities, Guangzhou and Shenzhen have the largest month-on-month increase this month, with an increase of 96.0% and 95.3% respectively; Beijing's month-on-month increase is second, at 45.7%; Shanghai's increase is the smallest, at 3.7%. In terms of year-on-year comparison, Guangzhou and Shenzhen have a more obvious increase, with 40.6% and 28.6% respectively; Beijing and Shanghai still have a slight decrease year-on-year, with 7.8% and 4.2% respectively.

Among them, in the Shenzhen market, after the release of the new real estate policy on September 29, two "daylight plates" have appeared in succession, which are the Shenzhen Shangcheng School in Longhua District and the China Construction Guanyue project in Guangming District. This is also a rare "daylight" project in non-restricted areas in recent years. According to statistics, from October 1st to 26th, Shenzhen's city-wide new commercial residential online signing and subscription reached 10,030 units, with a total of 1.0293 million square meters, with an average daily subscription of about 390 units and nearly 40,000 square meters, creating a new high in the transaction volume of Shenzhen's new housing market in recent years.

On September 29, the Guangzhou real estate market ushered in a major policy, clearly canceling all purchase restrictions for resident families in Guangzhou, and the purchase restriction policy that has been implemented for 14 years was canceled, making it the first first-tier city to fully cancel purchase restrictions. According to data released by the Guangzhou Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau, since the implementation of the new policy (as of October 21st), Guangzhou's city-wide new residential online signing reached 6,300 units and 672,600 square meters. This number increased by 22.0% and 19.47% compared to the 5,164 units and 560,300 square meters of new residential online signing in September.Second-hand Housing Outperforms New Housing

From the performance of several core cities, it is evident that since the end of September, the recovery of the second-hand housing market has been more noticeable compared to the new housing market. According to data monitored by CRIC, in the first 20 days of October, the popularity of second-hand housing in first-tier cities has significantly outperformed new housing. The transaction volume of Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen in the first 20 days of October increased by 31% compared to September, with a year-on-year increase reaching 60%.

Taking Beijing as an example, after the "9·30" new policy, the popularity of both new and second-hand housing in Beijing has increased, but the popularity of second-hand housing is far higher than that of new housing. It is understood that this is due to the fact that more than half of the customers in Beijing follow the "sell one, buy one" approach, and most owners need to "sell old, buy new" to meet their improvement needs.

Statistical data from the Central China Real Estate Research Institute shows that as of October 26, the online signing of second-hand residential housing in Beijing in October has reached 12,979 units, a month-on-month increase of 21.24%, and a year-on-year increase of 53.09%. Due to the lag in online signing of second-hand housing, the actual transaction has exceeded 21,000 units, with a year-on-year increase of over 150%. Zhang Dawei, the chief analyst of Central China Real Estate, estimates that the online signing for the entire month of October will exceed 16,000 units, setting a 19-month high; the actual market transaction is expected to reach 25,000 units, a new high since 2017.

Reporters learned from several market intermediaries that after the new policy was introduced in Beijing at the end of September, a small number of owners in some areas proposed price increases, but the second-hand housing that could be quickly traded in October is still mainly based on cost-effective housing. At present, the price of the entire Beijing second-hand housing market is stable.

In addition to Beijing, according to the monitoring of Anjuke, as of October 26, the daily transaction volume of second-hand housing in Shanghai has broken through the 1,000-unit mark four times, with a total transaction volume exceeding 20,000 units, reaching 20,028 units. The number of days when the daily transaction volume of second-hand housing broke through the 1,000-unit mark within the year has also increased to 10 days.

According to the monitoring of Le You Jia Research Center, from October 1 to 27, the online signing volume (contract recording volume) of second-hand housing in Shenzhen has reached 6,811 units, with an average daily online signing of 252 units. Based on this trend, the total online signing volume for October has been pre-booked at 7,000 units and is expected to rush to 8,000 units, approaching the data of January 2021. At the same time, as of October 27, 2024, 4,989 second-hand residential housing transfers in October have reached the "boom and bust line" level, and the monthly transfer volume is expected to approach 6,000 units.

At a recent press conference held by the State Council Information Office, Ni Hong, the Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, stated that since the end of September, the number of house viewings, visits, and signings in key cities has significantly increased, and the transaction volume of second-hand housing has continued to rise, with positive changes in the market. Especially in first-tier cities, the market has fully stabilized since October. "Under the influence of a series of policies, after three years of adjustment, the market has begun to bottom out. We judge that the data for October will be a positive and optimistic result."