Beijing Lifts Cap on Suburban Home Purchases Amid Persistent Decline in Housing Sector

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Aug 13, 2025 - 09:52 Updated: Aug 13, 2025 - 01:04
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Beijing Lifts Cap on Suburban Home Purchases Amid Persistent Decline in Housing Sector
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Beijing has lifted a long-standing cap on the number of suburban homes that city residents can purchase, a move aimed at stimulating sales in China’s struggling real estate market.

The change, effective Aug. 9, was announced on Aug. 8 by Beijing’s Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the Housing Fund Management Center.

Under the revised policy, households meeting Beijing’s home-purchase eligibility rules may now buy any number of commercial housing units outside the city’s Fifth Ring Road.

Those eligible include residents with local household registration and non-locals who have continuously paid social insurance or personal income tax in the city for the “required number” of years, according to the statement.

The rule applies to both new and second-hand properties, and single adults are subject to the same criteria as households, the commission stated.

The move is part of broader efforts by authorities to revive the city’s real estate sector, which has faced ongoing challenges, including sluggish sales and high inventory levels.

In June, a 0.3 percent month-on-month drop extended a weak trend that has persisted since May 2023.

Market weakness has also been evident in sales and investment. Figures from the China Index Academy on July 31 show that the country’s top 100 real-estate developers recorded combined sales of 2.07 trillion yuan (about $285 billion) in the first seven months of 2025, down by 13.3 percent from the same period a year earlier.
China’s real estate crisis has simmered over the past decades. In 2021, property developer giant Evergrande defaulted on $300 billion in debt, ushering in the sector’s steep decline.

Although the authorities rolled out a series of stimulus packages last year, these measures have failed to address the root cause.

Zhai Shanying, the former head of investment banking at the China Construction Bank who now lives in the United States, said in his YouTube commentary program in January that 2025 will be a year of frenzied collapse for the Chinese property market.
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“After three years of desperate nationwide efforts by the CCP—from central to local government, from state-owned to private enterprises—nothing has reversed the trend,” he said. “The only thing the policies and money have bought is a slight delay, and an eventual bigger collapse.”
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In May, the Chinese communist regime’s housing minister, Ni Hong, said the property sector is showing positive changes and market confidence is improving.
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Analysts polled by Reuters in February cautioned that a full market recovery is not anticipated until 2026, given the substantial declines in property investment, sales, and new construction in recent years.
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Lynn Xu, Kane Zhang, and Reuters contributed to this report.
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