​​​​​​​Plunge of 41%! Flood-like Sell-off in Beijing Real Estate Market, Luxury Homes Collapse in Fire Sales

Unfinished residential development by China Evergrande Group, in the outskirts of Shijiazhuang

[People News] On August 8, Beijing’s real estate market lifted purchase restrictions, and after one month of the new policy taking effect. The second-hand housing market saw a flood-like sell-off, fourth-ring housing prices entered the 20,000 yuan era, fifth-ring housing nakedly plunged to 10,000 yuan, and luxury homes also collapsed. Home sellers shed tears this autumn, hearts broken, those who took over got brutally struck, all becoming cannon fodder. In 2025, the “golden September and silver October” exits the stage with no suspense, and Beijing’s housing market has entered the garbage era of scrap copper and rotten iron.

The real estate economy was once the pillar industry of China’s economy, and also a landmark industry reflecting the rise and fall of China’s economy. The two are interrelated, advancing and retreating together. To put it bluntly, if real estate is no longer working, China’s economy is like having its sinews and bones broken, the fundamentals collapse, and economic contraction in turn brutally strikes back at the housing market, leaving the housing market bruised and battered, hard to repair.

The CCP economy is now deeply mired in severe deflation, with the real estate economy shadowing it, far from bottoming out. Purchase restriction policies can be called the prefabricated epitaph of China’s real estate economy. They were the seller’s market’s psychological defense line for self-consolation and maintaining illusions, and also the price negotiation floor for housing prices. Once purchase restrictions are lifted, listing volume, online contract volume, transaction price—everything instantly reveals its true form, and the last fig leaf for defending the market instantly becomes the last straw of a dimensionality reduction strike.

Let’s speak directly with data. In August 2025, Beijing sold a total of 3,135 new homes, 254 more than July’s 2,881, an increase of 8.16% month-on-month. It looks like a highlight, a small climax, the government’s shot of chicken blood wasn’t entirely wasted, was it?

Let’s see how many new homes Beijing sold in 2024? The answer is 5,308 units sold in August last year; this year it’s directly 2,173 fewer, a year-on-year plunge of 40.93%. Isn’t that a cruel, bleeding halving?

And the stark reality is not just that. In August, Beijing’s average new home transaction price was 59,900 yuan/square meter, down 2,200 yuan from July’s 62,100 yuan/square meter, a drop of 3.54%.

Now look at the second-hand housing market. In August, Beijing signed 13,331 second-hand homes online, an increase of 4.28% compared to July, but still a 7.19% drop compared to August 2024. 15,000 units/month is the market’s “line between prosperity and decline,” and in August, Beijing’s second-hand housing market still stuck below that line, meaning still struggling in drowning.

The government thought lifting purchase restrictions was the magic potion to repair the market, and that real estate would usher in a turnaround spring. Unexpectedly, opening the floodgates of purchase restrictions triggered a flood-like housing market release without warning. Owners stampeded into selling. As of September 1, the listing volume on top agency Lianjia’s front-end exceeded 142,000 units, and the total number of backend listings is estimated to have surpassed 160,000. In eight months, listing volume increased by more than 10,000 units. Sellers, like death-row prisoners who finally caught the golden opportunity of the concentration camp gates being opened, frantically fled. The real estate market instantly displayed the apocalyptic illusion of “trading volume for price,” and the 10,000 yuan era of Beijing real estate is no longer a dream!

The government originally wanted to step on the accelerator to speed up the real estate market, but while volume did accelerate, prices shifted into reverse gear, plunging directly into the ditch. According to Anjuke’s latest data, the average listing price for second-hand homes is 43,200 yuan/square meter, already more than 16% lower than the same period last year. The “barometer” of Beijing real estate—the Rongze Jiayuan community in Huilongguan—since August has seen prices crashing down like a waterfall. A 104-square-meter three-bedroom that could still sell for 5.2 million yuan in June directly dropped to 3.85 million yuan by the end of August. In two months, 1.35 million yuan vanished. A lifetime’s hard-earned money evaporated in an instant.

Listing prices are the beautified influencer photos for traffic, glamorous and splendid. Transaction prices are the bare-faced reality when talking marriage—too tragic to look at. The transaction price in Beijing’s third-ring Majiabao Xili dropped to 27,000 yuan, realizing the entry of Beijing’s third ring into the small 30,000-yuan era. A two-bedroom 71.57-square-meter home in Qingheyuan, South Fourth Ring, was listed at 1.8 million, transaction price 1.51 million, dropping into the 20,000 yuan era. A certain community at the edge of the fifth ring, only 11 km from the second ring, saw a home taken for just a few hundred thousand yuan, directly entering the 10,000 yuan era, with prices back to ten years ago overnight. 

Since the implementation of the new policy in August, across Beijing’s districts and counties, housing prices in core areas have comprehensively collapsed, continuing to drop. In July, housing prices fell 6.02% in Xicheng, 7.23% in Dongcheng, 1.5% in Haidian, and 1.11% in Chaoyang. Xicheng and Dongcheng, the central first- and second-ring areas, dropped even more severely.

In Dongcheng’s Jingtai Xili West District, a one-bedroom home had an August transaction price of 2.87 million, compared to 5.6 million for the same type in 2023, halved in two years. Xicheng listings also fell 40–50% compared to three or four years ago. In Beijing’s Chaoyang District, in prime areas like Asian Games Village and Wangjing Jiayuan, home prices this year fell nearly 50%. Prices in Haidian’s Wudaokou returned directly to 2013 levels.

The CCP’s policy toolbox is already empty. Major agencies, to seize the window and push volume, launched a “one-price” marketing strategy to boost the stampede-like sell-off. Starting at the end of May, Lianjia, a large chain agency, selected a batch of so-called “one-price” listings across Beijing. These homes were priced down to the lowest price in the community, the lowest among all nearby communities, listed in bulk, and then heavily promoted. To quickly offload homes, owners could only grit their teeth and sell at a loss. Transaction prices for “one-price” homes were even lower than the listing prices. Large agencies would then use this as a base to continue frantically PUA-ing other homeowners. The entire market’s prices were completely manipulated by homeowners’ fear and agencies’ price-smashing marketing. This viral sweeping mode, no one can withstand. The real estate clearance has nothing to do with supply and demand, completely giving way to price derailment.

The state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) suddenly stabbed in the back. On the eve of Beijing lifting purchase restrictions, the SASAC of Chaoyang District sold more than 300 units in Chenguang Jiayuan C District on the market, all sold as rough new homes. Lower floors had an average price of about 55,000 yuan/square meter, middle floors about 60,000 yuan/square meter. Owners wailed bitterly, saying this was the government cheating with information gaps and policy power. A netizen said they bought a Chenguang Jiayuan C District home in June 2022 for 8.38 million yuan, unit price 86,900 yuan; now when listing, they have to cut the price by more than 2 million, evaporating over 700,000 yuan per year on average. 

Ordinary housing plunges into the abyss, and even top luxury homes cannot avoid disaster. Beijing’s Financial Street in Xicheng District is a scarce-value core area, the golden spot most resistant to declines in Beijing’s real estate. But even such a top area could not withstand the massive earthquake of the housing market. Recently, a 153.73-square-meter three-bedroom in Xicheng Jinghua sold on August 30 for 23.3 million yuan. The same type sold three years ago for 33.66 million yuan, a 31% drop. In Haidian’s Wanliu Shuyuan sector, also one of Beijing’s top luxury home areas, in September 2025 three homes just sold: a three-bedroom in Fengshang International, a four-bedroom and a two-bedroom in Wanquan Xinxin. Transaction prices compared to the same period last year fell 33%, 25%, and 26% respectively. In just one year, 8–9 million yuan disappeared. 

Looking back at 30 years of Beijing real estate, the whole course was almost all an upward trend. From 2009–2011, the highest monthly transaction volume reached 40,000 units. In 2013, the highest monthly transaction volume peaked at 45,000 units. In 2016–2017, the highest monthly transaction volume was 31,000 units. These periods were also times when housing prices surged crazily. But since the second half of 2023 until now, the housing market has seen a cliff-like decline, with housing prices in core urban areas falling 20–30%, and some listings falling 50% or even more. There are many reasons: declining permanent population, aging population as a long-term factor, and more directly, the overall downward environment of China’s economy. Ordinary people really have no money. Even the capital cannot escape vulgar reality; the economic winter has already started to freeze Beijing, the benchmark city for real estate, and the chill has spread even to Beijing’s core areas.

China’s real estate market is a mirror of the CCP’s economic cliff dive. If the CCP economy is anti-market, then the CCP’s real estate market is anti-human nature: buying at the height of the bubble, selling when no one cares.

(First published by People News) △