Second-hand home transactions have begun to accelerate at an increasingly rapid pace.

On August 28, a major adjustment was made to the mortgage policy — the maximum term was extended from 30 years to 40 years. On the 10th day after the introduction of the new policy, a 40-year mortgage case emerged in Hangzhou during a second-hand housing transaction.

The policy signal has been transmitted to the second-hand housing market. We have noticed a key signal: while the market is entering a high-level consolidation period, the average transaction cycle per second-hand housing unit has been shortened in many cities.

01

The transaction momentum of second-hand housing has slowed down month by month.

Data from 20 cities monitored by Pti Purui Digital Intelligence shows that the total transaction area of second-hand housing in August was 15.35 million square meters, down 9% month-on-month and up 5% year-on-year. The overall transaction volume is still in line with the monthly average level of 2025. The cumulative transaction volume from January to August reached 134.4 million square meters, with a cumulative year-on-year increase of 6%, and the growth rate has narrowed significantly.

Compared with new homes, second-hand housing transactions remain active. In August, the transaction scale of second-hand housing was 1.59 times that of new homes, and the cumulative transaction volume from January to August was 1.33 times that of new homes; the cumulative year-on-year increase of second-hand housing was 6% while that of new homes decreased by 10%, forming a scissors difference of 16 percentage points.

At the city level, five cities recorded month-on-month growth, namely Xiamen, Hangzhou, Chongqing, Hefei and Beijing. The remaining 15 cities all saw declines, with Shenzhen, Zhengzhou, Nanjing and Tianjin leading the drop, indicating a widespread correction.

In terms of year-on-year comparison, the transaction volume of second-hand housing in most cities in August was better than the same period last year, with 14 cities seeing year-on-year increases, accounting for 70% of the total. Among them, Suzhou, Xiamen, Dongguan and Chengdu all recorded a year-on-year increase of more than 20%.

There were 15 cities with cumulative year-on-year growth in the first 8 months, of which 11 cities saw an increase of more than 10%.

In terms of the transaction scale of second-hand housing in August, Shanghai, Chengdu and Beijing ranked the top three, with a total of 4.83 million square meters in the three cities, accounting for 31% of the total of the 20 cities.

Specifically: Shanghai ranked first among the 20 cities with 1.8 million square meters, a sharp year-on-year increase of 19%. Chengdu followed closely, with 1.74 million square meters of transactions in August, a slight month-on-month decrease of 4%, and both the year-on-year and cumulative year-on-year growth rates exceeded 15%. Beijing recorded 1.29 million square meters of transactions, achieving positive growth in month-on-month, year-on-year and cumulative year-on-year terms, with all three growth rates remaining within 5%.

In contrast, the second-hand housing markets in Changsha, Zhengzhou, Nanjing, Qingdao and Foshan are under greater pressure, with negative growth in both month-on-month and year-on-year terms in August. Among these cities, Zhengzhou and Qingdao still saw a cumulative year-on-year decline, leading the drop among the 20 cities.

02

Behind the decline in transaction volume, we look at the changes in the listing scale of second-hand housing and the average transaction cycle per unit.

First, look at the listing situation. Data fed back by third-party intermediary channels shows that the total number of second-hand housing listings in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Hefei and Zhongshan among typical cities has decreased year-on-year. Shanghai has an inventory of 75,419 units, down 23% year-on-year; Beijing has 107,829 units, down 24% year-on-year.

The number of second-hand housing listings in Chengdu, Xi'an, Changsha and Shenzhen is still increasing. Among them, Chengdu has as many as 209,913 second-hand housing listings, up 20% year-on-year, and the difficulty of destocking second-hand housing remains relatively high.

From another observation dimension, the average transaction cycle of second-hand housing sample units traded in August has been shortened across the board in eight key cities. It should be noted that the average transaction cycle refers to the average transaction cycle of the sample units provided by third-party intermediary channels, which does not represent the overall situation of the whole city, but it also provides a key perspective for us to observe the market trend of second-hand housing.

For Beijing, among the 1,389 sample units that have been traded in August, the average transaction cycle per unit has been compressed to 56 days, 15 days less than the previous month, which is the shortest transaction cycle in the past year.

The average transaction cycle of 1,930 sample units in Shanghai is 90 days, 21 days less than that of the sample units in July. For the first time in 34 months, the transaction cycle has dropped below 100 days, returning to the level of mid-2023.

The average transaction cycle of sample units in Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Wuhan and Xi'an has all reached a phased low point.

The shortening of the transaction cycle is a positive signal of market liquidity, and the wait-and-see sentiment of both buyers and sellers has weakened. A key factor is that the current market expectation is stable, the price expectations of buyers and sellers have reached a consensus, the bargaining tug-of-war has decreased, and under the background of "exchanging volume for price", as long as the price expectations match, some high-quality housing units tend to be traded faster.

A typical case is Hangzhou. The average transaction cycle of 1,237 sample units in Hangzhou in August is 247 days, which is the month with the shortest transaction cycle since the beginning of this year. Among the top three projects in terms of transaction volume, the 6 units of Zizhangtai, a popular property lifted from the existing sale restriction, have an average transaction cycle of only 79 days. According to feedback from Xiao Tao, an intermediary in the North Sandun area, a well-decorated premium housing unit with a reasonable price in Zizhangtai was launched in early September and sold out in less than a week.

It can also be seen from the discount rate that "exchanging volume for price" remains the main theme of the second-hand housing market.

The average transaction discount rate of second-hand housing samples in typical cities remains between 85% and 93%. The bargaining space in Beijing and Shanghai is relatively small, with the transaction discount rate close to 93%, which is equivalent to a 97% discount on the listing price; Shenzhen only has 85.9%, so home buyers still have a large bargaining space.

It is worth noting that in August, Beijing and Shanghai simultaneously launched optimized property market policies, superimposed on the dividend transmission of the previous new policy of 40-year mortgage term, the release window of policy effect is opening up. According to the data, the warmth of the market has appeared in advance: the transaction volume of second-hand housing in Shanghai in the first 7 days of September has exceeded 5,000 units, an increase of about 8% compared with the same period in August. The "Golden September and Silver October" is very likely to usher in the peak of this round of policy effects.

For this round of market trend, the core support will still be "exchanging volume for price" and the improvement of the replacement chain. The structural market trend of the second-hand housing market will continue in the next stage, and housing units with high cost performance and prime locations tend to be traded faster.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Ding Zuyu Reviews the Property Market", author: Editorial Department, published with authorization from 36Kr.