(Yicai) Feb. 4 -- The resale housing markets in China’s four first-tier cities showed signs of warming up last month, with more properties changing hands in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen alongside falling listings.

Sales of pre-owned homes in the capital topped 15,082 in January, down 12 percent from December but up 21 percent from a year ago and staying above 14,000 for the third month in a row, according to data from the Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

In Shanghai, sales totaled 22,834, slipping 0.5 percent month on month but jumping 24 percent year on year, while marking a five-year high for January and exceeding 22,000 for the third consecutive month, per figures from the Shanghai Real Estate Trading Center.

Those in Guangzhou climbed 1.1 percent to 8,881 from a month earlier, according to the Guangzhou Real Estate Intermediary Association. Shenzhen saw sales reach a 10-month high of 6,802, up 2.9 percent from December and 46 percent from a year ago, while remaining above 5,000 for 11 straight months, the Shenzhen Real Estate Intermediary Association reported.

The rebound indicates that resale price-to-income and rent-to-sale ratios have begun to reach more reasonable levels and first-tier city markets are entering a bottom-finding stage after about four and a half years of falling prices, Li Yujia, chief researcher at the Guangdong Provincial Academy of Urban and Rural Planning and Design's Housing Policy Research Center, told Yicai.

Still, moving from bottom-finding to market consolidation will require the combined effect of multiple supportive factors, including further reductions in transaction costs, improvements to market order and transparency, and an improvement in household confidence on employment, incomes, and future expectations, Li pointed out.

Fewer Listings

Meanwhile, the number of resale homes listed for sale in Beijing by major realtors fell 4.7 percent from Dec. 31 to 125,600 as of Jan. 26, a near two-year low, according to China Index Academy’s data. Shanghai had about 336,800 listings as of Jan. 27, extending the decline into a fourth straight month and largely returning to levels last seen in February 2025, according to data released by Online Real Estate, a platform operated by the Shanghai Real Estate Trading Center.

“The drop in listings reflects a clear shift in homeowners’ attitudes,” real estate information services platform Anjuke said in a recent report. Over the past few years, many of them were willing to keep cutting prices to close deals quickly, but a growing number have begun refusing to engage in what Anjuke described as “low-price competition.”

When unable to find buyers quickly, owners are opting to pull listings and wait on the sidelines or switch to renting out, especially when it comes to older homes in good locations that owners are no longer eager to sell at discounted prices to cash out, the report said.

Despite the decline in listings across first-tier cities, overall inventory levels remain elevated and destocking pressure in the second-hand housing market persists, said Cao Jingjing, general manager of the China Index Academy's index research department.

The resale markets in Beijing and Shanghai are exhibiting pronounced “structural divergence,” with sharply different price trends between core and non-core areas, as well as between high-quality and ordinary properties, Cao noted. This suggests that prices for premium second-hand homes in central districts may have adjusted to more reasonable levels, while older properties in non-core areas and homes in outer suburbs continue to face downward pressure, he said.

Resale home prices in Beijing and Shanghai fell last month from December, but at a slower pace compared with previous months, according to the China Real Estate Index System's 100-City Price Index.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Martin Kadiev