Second-hand residential properties with a total price of no more than 2 million yuan have become the most sought-after properties in Beijing.

In the first three quarters of this year, the online signing volume of second-hand residential properties in Beijing reached 137,229 units, up 5.1% year-on-year, making it the most active market year since 2022. However, the market structure has undergone tremendous changes over the past five years.

In the first three quarters, the most traded second-hand homes in Beijing are those with a total price below 2 million yuan, accounting for 51.3% of the total transaction volume, exceeding 50% for the first time in recent years.

During the upward period of the property market, this price point was almost impossible for people to get on the property ladder in Beijing, but in just a few years, the prices have dropped significantly.

Data

1

 Buy properties in prime locations with less than 2 million yuan

On Xiaohongshu, a large number of posts posted by accounts with Beijing IP, who call themselves "ordinary workers" or "first-time home buyers with rigid demand", ask: "What areas in Beijing can I buy a house for 2 million yuan?"

There are active comments under these posts, listing alternative residential complexes one after another: Yongtai Community in Qinghe, Tonghui Garden in Tongzhou, Xuante Jiayuan in Chaoyang North Road, Xili Community in Shifoying, Beili Community in Huajiadi of Wangjing, Fangqun Garden in Fangzhuang, Nanli Community in Bajiao of Shijingshan...

Source: China Index Academy

A large number of home sellers also joined the comment section to recommend their properties for sale. "Our apartment is on the market, located in the Electric Power Research Institute Community in Qinghe, Haidian. It is a well-decorated one-bedroom, one-living room apartment of less than 40 square meters on the second floor, close to the subway, with a park nearby. It is a very good property that also falls within a school district."

However, these first-time home buyers with rigid demand are not in a hurry to buy. They have been constantly influenced by the view that "you should wait during the downward period of the market", so their house-hunting cycle often extends to more than one year. Moreover, the more properties they view, the more additional requirements they put forward for the properties:

◆The apartment layout should be regular, with windows in both the living room and bedroom, oddly-shaped or knife-shaped layouts are not acceptable;

◆It must be a standard pure residential property with 70-year property rights, with residential water and electricity supply, apartments and commercial-residential mixed properties are not acceptable;

◆There must be supermarkets, wet markets, shopping malls or food streets nearby, and large hospitals within 20 minutes' drive, properties with incomplete supporting facilities are not acceptable;

◆There must be a subway station within 1 kilometer, reachable within 10 minutes by bike, properties with poor transportation access are not acceptable;

◆The property must have good sound insulation, the facade of the building and the corridor should not be too dilapidated or dirty, properties with poor appearance are not acceptable;

◆The location must be in the core urban area, or in a business district where young people gather, properties in remote areas are not acceptable.

Some home buyers even hope that the property is located in a good school district, or use data of population inflow and rental return to calculate the property's ability to resist price drops.

Experienced home buyers will also ask real estate agents to attach the transaction prices of second-hand properties in the same community ten years ago when pushing property information, to make sure they never overpay.

Putting forward more requirements, while being willing to make a decisive move when meeting a suitable property and taking their time if not, this is the common mentality of rigid demand home buyers in Beijing's current second-hand property market.

2

 Properties worth 2 million yuan today were priced at over 3 million yuan in the past

The continuous drop in housing prices has made it possible to "buy a house in Beijing for 2 million yuan".

According to data from 58.com Anjuke, in October 2026, the average listing price of second-hand properties across Beijing is about 36,500 yuan per square meter, about 13% lower than the same period last year. The peak of this data was around 62,000 yuan per square meter — the average housing price in Beijing has dropped by about 40% from its high point.

Calculated based on average data, a property currently priced at 2 million yuan was worth about 3.4 million yuan at the peak of the market. Looking back at the past years, buying now means gaining value.

58.com Anjuke Listing Data

As prices go down, there are a huge number of options for buying a house with a total price of 2 million yuan in Beijing.

Data from the official website of Lianjia Beijing shows that, with "within 2 million yuan" as the filter condition, the total number of eligible properties in Beijing's six core urban districts and suburban areas exceeds 22,000 units (including some parking spaces). There are sufficient properties to choose from in popular business districts of Chaoyang, Fengtai and Changping, including internet-famous business districts such as Chaoyang Joy City and Hopson One.

Source: Lianjia Beijing

Since the beginning of this year, the transaction volume of second-hand properties in Beijing has risen, but the price has not stopped falling. According to the 100 Cities Price Index of the China Real Estate Index System, the price of second-hand residential properties in Beijing fell by a cumulative 5.32% in the first three quarters of 2026. The average listing price in Beijing is still on a downward trend, with the decline narrowing in the second quarter and widening in the third quarter.

Up to now, within the whole city of Beijing, only Xicheng, Dongcheng and Haidian districts have an average transaction price of second-hand properties above 50,000 yuan per square meter, and only Xicheng District has an average transaction price above 80,000 yuan per square meter.

However, since the second half of this year, Beijing's second-hand property market has shown signs of stabilization. According to monitoring by China Index Academy, the scale of second-hand property listings in Beijing has shown a fluctuating downward trend since the fourth quarter of last year. At the end of September 2026, the stock of second-hand property listings in Beijing stood at 118,000 units, down 1.1% month-on-month and 15.7% year-on-year.

The rebound in second-hand property transaction volume, coupled with the drop in listing volume, has also narrowed the negotiation space simultaneously. According to the data of leading real estate agencies monitored by China Index Academy, the negotiation space for second-hand properties in Beijing has remained generally stable since the beginning of this year, reaching 6.99% in September, significantly lower than the high point in September last year (close to 15%).

Some home buyers have already felt that: In the fourth quarter, the number of high-quality second-hand properties priced below 2 million yuan is not as large as that in the first half of the year.

The continuously increasing policies to stimulate the property market is one of the reasons. On August 7, Beijing released new property market policies, including doubling the maximum provident fund loan amount for first-home purchasing couples, no longer verifying home purchase qualifications for property gifts, and lowering the social security requirement for non-Beijing registered residents buying properties within the Fifth Ring Road from 2 years to 1 year. In the two months after the release of the policies, the transaction volume saw a significant jump: 4,675 new residential properties were traded, up 49.6% month-on-month; 15,756 second-hand residential properties were traded, up 13.7% month-on-month, both hitting new highs in nearly half a year.

At the same time, the month-on-month change of second-hand property prices turned from negative to positive, reaching 0.1%. The transmission path of "driving price up by increasing transaction volume → both volume and price rising" is being realized. Data shows that the transaction prices of second-hand properties in business districts such as Chaoyangmenwai, Wudaokou, Xierqi, Shaoyaoju, Xibahe and Gongzhufen have seen month-on-month increases.

Industry insiders said that the introduction of the new round of policies, with fiscal tools formally deeply participating in supporting housing consumption, has made the policy bottom line clearer. When the central finance brings real money into the market, the underlying logic of the market is no longer just the tug-of-war between landlords and home buyers.

For home buyers, Beijing's property market is no longer an integrated market where all properties rise or fall in tandem, but has transformed from a "general appreciation asset" to a "stratified consumption" in the past few years. For rigid demand home buyers, this is one of the most friendly windows in the past five years; for the market, this is just a stage after price revaluation.

70 days later, the new year will arrive. In 2027, will you consider buying a house?

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