China Index Research Institute: Second-hand housing transactions in key cities remained active in September, and the volume continued to increase year on year, but the month-on-month decline in prices increased

The Zhitong Finance App learned that according to data monitoring by the China Index Research Institute, in September 2026, second-hand housing transactions in key cities remained active, and sales volume continued to increase year on year, but the month-on-month decline widened. The average price of second-hand housing in Baicheng was 12,452 yuan/square meter, down 0.60% from the previous month, an increase of 0.15 percentage points over the previous month. Looking at the number of rising and falling cities, 3 cities rose month-on-month, 97 cities fell month-on-month, and among the core cities, Shanghai rose.

In terms of new housing, key cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, and Chengdu all had high-quality properties entering the market in September, driving the price of new homes in Baicheng continued to rise structurally from month to month. The average price of newly built homes in Baicheng was 17,285 yuan/square meter, up 0.17% month-on-month and 2.12% year-on-year. In terms of rental housing, in September, the housing rental market gradually entered a low season, and the popularity of rental demand in key cities declined. The average residential rent in 50 cities was 33.97 yuan/square meter/month, down 0.17% month-on-month and 2.23% year-on-year.

Looking at second-hand housing, in September, second-hand housing prices in first-tier, second-tier, and third-tier and fourth-tier cities fell 0.42%, 0.7%, and 0.58%, respectively. The month-on-month declines increased by 0.07%, 0.16%, and 0.17%, respectively, from the previous month. On a year-on-year basis, first-tier, second-tier and third-tier fourth-tier cities declined by 6.26%, 7.40%, and 6.77%, respectively.

Looking at the cumulative results of the first three quarters, Baicheng's second-hand housing price index fell 4.33% in January-September. Each quarter fell by 1.72%, 1.2%, and 1.48%, respectively. The decline increased in the third quarter. Since this year, Baicheng's newly built residential price index has continued its structural slight upward trend. The cumulative increase in January-September was 1.18%, 0.4%, and 0.59% in each quarter.

Figure: Second-hand housing prices and month-on-month changes in Baicheng from January 2021 to September 2026

Data source: Middle Index Data CREIS

In September, the second-hand housing market in key cities maintained a certain level of activity, continuing its year-on-year growth trend. The month-on-month decline in second-hand housing prices in the top ten cities increased compared to the previous month, and housing prices in Shanghai changed from falling to rising month-on-month. On September 18, the Ministry of Housing and Construction's press conference introduced the situation relating to promoting high-quality development of housing, urban and rural construction during the “15th Five-Year Plan” period, pointing out that there have been major changes in the real estate market supply and demand relationships, real estate has entered the inventory era, explaining the content of the new real estate development model “1234,” and clearly reforming and improving the basic real estate system by focusing on the three systems of project company system, host bank system, and existing housing sales system; on the 28th, the National Standing Committee emphasized the need to “increase countercyclical adjustment of macroeconomic policies”, while clearly “introducing a number of practical and practical incremental policies,... Policy Measures to Increase Employment Revenue”; On the 29th, the Ministry of Finance, the Central Bank, and the General Administration of Financial Supervision jointly issued a notice to give residents who buy their first home (120 square meters or less, total price within 1.5 million yuan) an annualized financial discount of 1 percentage point for new commercial personal housing loans. The implementation period is tentatively 1 year, with a maximum size of 1 million yuan and a maximum term of 5 years. This is the first time that the central government has discounted interest rates on mortgages to support the release of rigid housing needs of urban and rural residents.

At the local level, Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou have successively implemented implementation rules for commercial residential sales system reform, making detailed arrangements around pre-sale management, fund supervision, deposit ratio for existing housing sales, installment payment of land payments, etc.; Tianjin, Dalian, Qingdao and other places have optimized provident fund policies. Among them, Tianjin has added property fee extraction and renovation fee extraction for self-occupied housing. Dalian raised the maximum amount of housing provident fund personal housing loans according to academic degree levels. 1.3 times for full-time college students, 1.6 times for undergraduate accounts, 1.6 times, and graduate student accounts are not stored at 1.8 times Restrictions; Shanghai, Chongqing, Anhui, Guangdong and other places issued documents relating to urban renewal; Guangdong, Changchun, Hubei and other places have implemented supporting policies to revitalize the stock of land, including Changchun, which allows idle industrial (logistics and warehousing) land to be used for commercial and service purposes; in addition, in September, Chongqing, Henan and other provinces and cities issued about 25.55 billion yuan of special bonds to collect, recycle and purchase idle stock.

Figure: Average price of second-hand housing listings in the top ten cities in September 2026 and the year-on-year ratio

Data source: Middle Index Data CREIS

In September, the average price of second-hand housing in Baicheng fell 0.60% month-on-month and 6.94% year on year; the average price of second-hand housing in the top ten cities fell 0.54% month-on-month, down 7.02% year on year. Looking at cities, the number of second-hand housing units sold in Beijing was 15,756, down 0.5% from the previous year. In January-September, a total of 137,000 second-hand housing units were sold, an increase of 5.1% over the previous year. In terms of prices, second-hand housing prices fell 0.78% month-on-month.

Second-hand commercial housing units in Shanghai sold 23,581 units, an increase of 17.2% over the previous year. In January-September, a total of 214,000 second-hand commercial housing units were sold, an increase of 14.3% over the previous year. In terms of prices, in September 2026, the average price of second-hand residential listings in Shanghai rose 0.11% month-on-month, down 4.47% year-on-year, and the year-on-year decline was 0.56 percentage points narrower than the previous month.

Second-hand housing prices in Guangzhou fell 0.69% month-on-month. The month-on-month decline was 0.07 percentage points higher than the previous month, down 7.38% from the previous month, and the year-on-year decline was 0.26 percentage points narrower than the previous month.

Second-hand residential sales in Shenzhen were 4,455 units, down 2.0% year on year. A total of 42,000 units were sold in January-September, a year-on-year decrease of 0.3%. In terms of prices, in September, second-hand housing prices in Shenzhen fell 0.41% month-on-month. The month-on-month decline was 0.16 percentage points higher than the previous month, down 4.55% year-on-year, and the year-on-year decline was 0.08 percentage points narrower than the previous month.