Has the unit price of existing homes near the Fifth Ring Road in Beijing dropped to over 10,000 yuan?

In the first week of September, the performance of two suburban projects in Beijing has drawn widespread attention.

The Youth ONE Phase 2 project in the Shunyi Fengbo area recorded 56 transactions, claiming the top spot in the ordinary residential property sales ranking. It was followed by Xincheng Tou Yuheyuan in Fangshan Changyang, which took the runner-up position with sales of 46 units.

Online Signing Data

Compared with the top-selling project that already boasts huge market appeal (the sequel to the 2024 hit Youth ONE), Xincheng Tou Yuheyuan which claimed the second place came as a big surprise. According to data from Jinglou, in the first 8 months of this year, Yuheyuan only recorded 173 online signing transactions, and its sales volume in this single week exceeded the transaction level of one full month in the past.

1

Low price may be the core reason for the project's strong sales performance.

For Xincheng Tou Yuheyuan, its average transaction price in the first week of September was about 17,600 yuan per square meter, nearly 8,000 yuan per square meter lower than three months ago, hitting the lowest level since its market entry.

In fact, since it entered the market in 2024, its price has been declining continuously. When the first phase of the project opened for sale that year, the online signing price was 30,530 yuan per square meter. By 2025, the online signing price had dropped to 27,130 yuan per square meter. In the past two years, the overall price has decreased by about 13,300 yuan per square meter, with a drop of more than 42%. If compared with the proposed selling price when the project obtained the pre-sale permit, the current unit price has directly dropped by 20,000 yuan per square meter.

Online Signing Data of Yuheyuan from June to August

Pre-sale Permit Filing Price

At the unit price of 17,000 yuan, there are almost no comparable rivals across the entire current market.

In Fangshan District, the unit price of new residential properties is generally above 30,000 yuan, and the price of Yuheyuan can be said to have touched the regional price bottom line.

In Fangshan, only a handful of projects such as Cifi City and Beijing Construction Engineering Laxingyue can reach the same price level. However, these low-priced properties are all located outside the Sixth Ring Road and far away from subway stations. In contrast, Yuheyuan is located in the core area of Changyang, Fangshan, right next to the Fifth Ring Road. Although it is not adjacent to a subway station, the distance to the nearest subway station is less than 2 kilometers. It has a superior location condition but is sold at a very low, undervalued price.

Looking at the surrounding new properties, Beijing Urban Construction · He Zhizhu, 3 kilometers to the west, has an average price of around 37,000 yuan per square meter, and China Overseas Huanyu Shijie, 3 kilometers to the north, is priced at nearly 38,000 yuan per square meter. The unit price difference is nearly 20,000 yuan. Calculated based on the 88-square-meter unit, the total price can be saved by nearly 1.8 million yuan, which is enough to purchase another entire property. Its appeal to first-time home buyers is self-evident.

Compared with the second-hand housing market, its price advantage is also very prominent. The average price of second-hand housing in the Changyang area is around 25,000 yuan per square meter. The listed prices of slightly better-quality second-hand properties that have been delivered in recent years are mostly above 35,000 yuan per square meter, forming an obvious price inversion.

Across the whole of Beijing, there are very few new properties priced below 20,000 yuan per square meter. Not to mention the six central urban districts, it is hard to find such properties in suburban districts like Mentougou and Tongzhou, as most of their housing prices are also above 30,000 yuan per square meter. Only a very small number of projects adjacent to Langfang such as K2 Chunfeng Shili and Zhuzong Ruyuan are priced below 20,000 yuan per square meter, plus a few low-priced projects in Miyun and Pinggu. However, these new properties priced at over 10,000 yuan per square meter are far inferior to Yuheyuan, which is near the Fifth Ring Road and close to the subway, in terms of location and commuting conditions.

However, compared with its highly competitive price, the product quality of Yuheyuan is much less impressive.

It is developed by a district-level state-owned enterprise under Fangshan District. It was originally a resettlement housing project designated to accommodate the population resettlement from Xicheng District, as part of the Changxinjiayuan community on the west side of the project. Later, with the adjustment of the resettlement plan, some of its buildings were converted into pure commercial residential properties for sale on the market.

Yuheyuan offers unit types ranging from 65-square-meter one-bedroom to 116-square-meter three-bedroom. Since it was originally designed as resettlement housing, its unit layout design basically follows the market standard of more than a decade ago, with most units facing full south or having only one side facing south-north. Even the larger 110-square-meter unit does not adopt the currently mainstream three-side-south layout, which will inevitably affect the living experience.

Unit Layout Plan

The usable floor area ratio is not competitive either, only about 80%. In the current new residential market where the usable floor area ratio is generally above 90%, it is at the lower level. For example, He Zhizhu Borui in the same area has a usable floor area ratio between 90% and 99%, with additional designs such as free balcony space and overhead floors.

In terms of quality, Yuheyuan is just mediocre. For building configurations, it has dry-hanging stone and real stone paint, three-glass two-cavity broken bridge aluminum windows, and same-floor drainage systems. The community is also equipped with corresponding leisure and play areas. But the overall texture still has a considerable gap compared with the current mainstream commercial residential properties.

However, Yuheyuan is not completely without merits.

Its living supporting facilities are quite complete. The Changyang area where it is located is the area in Fangshan closest to the city center with the most mature supporting facilities. In addition to commercial facilities such as Capital Outlets, Jingtou Port and Impression City, there are also high-quality schools including the High School Affiliated to Tsinghua University and Huangchenggen Primary School. With major arterial roads such as the Fifth Ring Road, it only takes about half an hour to drive to Fengtai Science Park and Lize Business District. Moreover, Yuheyuan is a ready-to-move-in property. The first phase was delivered last year, and the second phase was also completed for delivery in April this year.

The quality controversy surrounding resettlement housing has long existed. But the good short-term transaction performance of Yuheyuan just shows that for first-time home buyer-oriented properties, when the price is low enough, the shortcomings in product and other aspects can be ignored. After all, for first-time home buyers, the budget is always the first threshold to cross.

2

In recent years, the area between the Fifth Ring Road and the Sixth Ring Road has always been the main concentration area of new residential supply in Beijing.

Take 2025 as an example, the new residential supply outside the Fifth Ring Road accounted for 60% of the total supply in Beijing, with nearly 19,000 units transacted, taking a leading position by a large margin. Housing prices within the ring roads are highly differentiated: the unit price of new properties outside the North Fifth Ring Road in Haidian can reach over 100,000 yuan, the East Fifth Ring Road in Chaoyang can reach over 70,000 yuan, while in areas outside the Fifth Ring Road such as Fengtai and Daxing, housing prices can drop below 50,000 yuan, and even around 30,000 yuan outside the Southwest Fifth Ring Road.

In terms of supply, apart from a small number of high-end improvement-oriented properties, the area outside the Fifth Ring Road is basically a "fierce competition battlefield" for first-time and first-time improvement-oriented properties. The market competition is extremely intense. Developers either compete on product quality, or increase the free space for unit layouts, or directly cut prices to boost sales.

From the successfully popular projects, we can see that there are roughly two paths to stand out from the competition.

The first path is to have excellent product quality and complete supporting facilities. Zhonghai Jiushu Manhe, the top-selling project by transaction count in Tongzhou in the first half of the year, is a typical example. It adopts the fourth-generation residential design, with a 75-square-meter unit that can be used as a three-bedroom, and the comprehensive usable ratio of the unit layout reaches over 92%, with the highest ratio of other unit types reaching 99%. In addition, it is a subway-adjacent property, about 600 meters away from the Jiukeshu Station of Line 1, which is very convenient for first-time home buyers to commute. The Tongzhou urban area where it is located is fully equipped with commercial facilities, schools, tertiary hospitals and parks.

The other path is to set the price at a level that leaves no competitive space for peers. In addition to the Yuheyuan mentioned above, Daxing Capital Xiyue Xingcheng is also a typical case. It is located in Tuanhe, a slightly remote area in Daxing, and its supporting facilities mainly rely on the Huangcun area west of Jingkai Expressway. It was also originally a resettlement housing project, with a generally average product quality. However, under the market condition that the surrounding new properties are basically priced at 45,000 yuan per square meter, its price is only about 28,600 yuan per square meter, with the total price of a one-bedroom unit at over 1.8 million yuan, and the total price of the largest three-bedroom unit is only over 3 million yuan, with very prominent price advantages. Therefore, from last year to the first eight months of this year, its popularity has continued to rise, ranking among the top in Daxing's transaction volume, with 247 online signing transactions in the first half of the year alone.

The two strategies seem different, but they are essentially the same. In the first-time home buyer market with limited budgets, what home buyers value most is no more than "value for money": the product is good enough, or the price is low enough. A project has to meet at least one of the two standards to truly stand out from the white-hot market competition.

Next, will the two first-time home buyer-oriented projects, Youth ONE Phase 2 and Yuheyuan, continue their hot sales momentum? Among the projects that have not yet entered the market, including Songzhou Shoukai Xiyue Jingyan, Yinghai Yizhuang Guoxianfu and Greentown Sidaoqiao, which one will stand out in the market? We will wait and see the follow-up answer from the market.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Future Habitat", the author is Future Habitat, and it is published by 36Kr with authorization.