During this year's National Day Golden Week, the national real estate market welcomed the start of the "Silver October." With a series of homebuying support policies continuing to take effect, visitation and transaction activity in new home markets across multiple regions has picked up, though divergence between cities and submarkets remains pronounced.
According to transaction registration data monitored by the China Index Academy, from October 1 to 7, new residential transactions in 25 key cities totaled 551,000 square meters, with average daily transactions rising 33.8% year-on-year compared with last year's National Day holiday.
Shanghai's property market extended its "Golden September" momentum into the National Day holiday, propelled by the combined effects of the "Shanghai Eight Measures" policy and the successive implementation of detailed rules for commercial housing sales reform.
According to China Index Academy data, in September, Shanghai's citywide new commercial residential transactions reached 1.179 million square meters, up 22.1% year-on-year. The second-hand home market also remained active, with 23,581 second-hand homes (including commercial) registered online for the month, up 15.7% year-on-year, setting a new high for the same period in nearly six years. Since March of this year, Shanghai's second-hand home transaction volume has remained above 23,000 units for seven consecutive months, making the market recovery visibly evident.
This momentum carried through to the National Day holiday. According to Shanghai Centaline Property statistics, during this year's National Day holiday (October 1–7), Shanghai's new commercial residential transaction area reached 34,600 square meters, doubling the 17,300 square meters recorded during last year's holiday (October 1–8).
During the National Day holiday, reporters from The Paper visited new home sales offices in Shanghai and observed bustling crowds at many project sales centers and showrooms. In addition to developers' own sales teams, many intermediary distribution staff were also stationed on-site to bring in customers, shuttling between various projects.
According to Meng Jing, Director of Customer Development for Minhang at Shanghai Lianjia's New Home Division, during the National Day Golden Week, visitation at multiple projects in the Minhang area heated up, with representative projects including Poly Duhui Hexu, Poly Guanghe Shangcheng, and Xiangyu Tianyu Lanxiang.
"The rules are clear now, there's no reason to wait and see," said a marketing staff member at Poly Duhui Hexu, noting that the implementation of the Shanghai Eight Measures combined with the new commercial housing sales reform policy has helped dissolve many homebuyers' wait-and-see sentiment. The project received over 600 visiting customer groups during the Mid-Autumn and National Day double holiday period, with 37 units subscribed during the seven-day National Day holiday alone.
At the sales office of Xiangyu Tianchen Yasong in Pujiang, Minhang, popularity remained undiminished during the holiday, with many home-viewing families seated in the sand table and negotiation areas. According to the project manager, special-priced units offered during the National Day period achieved good sell-through. Throughout the holiday, the project accumulated nearly 400 visiting customer groups, including 78 return-visit groups, with a total of 30 units subscribed and sales revenue of approximately 250 million yuan, with 12 units transacted on October 7 alone.
The showroom of Greentown Tingxiang Garden in Zhoupu, Pudong, also attracted many customers for visits and consultations. The project is the Zhoupu East plot that Greentown China acquired in late June this year after 89 rounds of bidding at a 19.9% premium. According to the project's sales manager, the project has not used intermediary distribution channels and is expected to officially launch in November this year.
In the view of frontline sales staff, the "Shanghai Eight Measures" have had a significant stimulating effect on the new home market outside the outer ring, with policies such as reducing the down payment for second homes to 15% and "trade-in" subsidies effectively lowering the threshold for upgrading; while the introduction of detailed rules for commercial housing sales reform not only benefits homebuyers but also allows developers to optimize their capital arrangements through policies such as installment land payments and supporting financing support.
On September 28 of this year, Shanghai officially implemented local detailed rules for the commercial housing sales system reform. The new policy specifies that for projects obtaining pre-sale permits from August 28, 2026, individual housing mortgage loans (including provident fund loans) can only be disbursed after completion acceptance filing, and loan funds should be paid to the fund supervision account through entrusted payment methods. This rule will change the repayment pace for homebuyers.
Yan Yuejin, Vice President of the Shanghai E-House Real Estate Research Institute, explained that under the new policy, new projects obtaining pre-sale permits must wait until completion acceptance filing before loans are disbursed. For homebuyers, this is equivalent to obtaining a window period of delayed repayment of approximately two years, which to some extent enhances homebuyers' enthusiasm for entering the market.
He provided an example calculation: taking a personal mortgage loan of 3 million yuan principal, 30-year equal installment repayment, and a mortgage rate of 3.05%, under the previous model, mortgage loans could theoretically be disbursed after topping out, and monthly repayment would begin after disbursement, requiring approximately 12,730 yuan per month in principal and interest, totaling approximately 300,000 yuan over two years. Under the new policy, loan disbursement is delayed by approximately two years, meaning homebuyers' short-term cash flow pressure is significantly reduced during these two years.
Lu Wenxi, a market analyst at Shanghai Centaline Property, pointed out that after the implementation of the "Shanghai Eight Measures," the focus of Shanghai's property market transactions has precisely shifted to first-time buyers and first-time upgraders, becoming the core force supporting market transactions and allowing self-occupation-oriented projects to lead in popularity during the holiday. On the other hand, the implementation of Shanghai's detailed rules for commercial housing sales reform has completely dispelled market wait-and-see sentiment, making homebuying decisions more certain, with many homebuyers proactively accelerating their new home purchase pace after comprehensively assessing the market.
However, the current property market is not experiencing universal price increases, and divergence between submarkets and individual projects remains severe. Data from the Shanghai Lianjia Research Institute also shows that the easing signals continuously released by the policy side are gradually translating into real purchasing power. During the National Day holiday (October 1–7), Shanghai Lianjia's second-hand home transaction volume increased 44% year-on-year, while new home transaction volume grew 64%.
Li Gen of the Shanghai Lianjia Research Institute noted that the current growth rate in property viewing volume is lower than the growth rate in transaction volume. This "scissors gap" releases a key signal — current homebuyers' decision-making efficiency has significantly improved, wait-and-see sentiment has weakened, and transaction willingness is firmer than last year. This indicates that against the backdrop of an optimized policy environment and stabilized price expectations, first-time and upgrade demand is accelerating its entry, and market confidence repair has entered a substantive stage.
Tier-One Core Cities Recover in Tandem, but Market Divergence Persists
The National Day property market recovery is not unique to Shanghai. Driven by a series of policy implementations, holiday transactions in first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shenzhen also rose year-on-year, though uneven market conditions remain.
Taking Beijing as an example, China Index Academy monitoring shows that new home supply increased in September, with multiple hot projects launching to strong sales since mid-to-late September. During the National Day holiday, driven by the combination of favorable policies and developer promotions, market heat continued, with visitation at multiple projects rebounding significantly and queues appearing at some hot projects' model units. Developers seized the holiday window to launch themed events and National Day exclusive promotions to attract prospective customers, such as holiday-exclusive discounts, complimentary property management fees, and parking space discounts.
From transaction registration data, during the National Day holiday, Beijing's new commercial residential average daily online registrations reached 144 units and 15,700 square meters, up 176% and 157% respectively compared with the same period last year. China Index Academy noted that current market divergence remains evident, with "good houses" — upgrade projects with high efficiency ratios, near-completed status, and subway proximity — selling well, while weak-support projects in distant suburbs continue to trade volume at the expense of price.
For the Shenzhen market, before the National Day holiday, Shenzhen intensively rolled out policies and homebuying promotion activities. The citywide "Golden September Silver October Good Homes Carnival" showcased nearly 80 projects, with districts such as Nanshan, Futian, and Guangming launching consumer voucher subsidies, "sell old buy new" subsidies, and "Good Homes Carnival" initiatives respectively. Developers also accelerated project launches, with approximately 1,229 residential units entering the market around late September, generally adopting tiered discounts and limited-time 15% off promotions.
According to China Index data, driven by the above factors, Shenzhen's holiday market showed moderate recovery, with new home project visits and contract signings rising compared with before the holiday. Multiple projects in Guangming and Bao'an saw visitation increase by approximately 30% compared with regular days, and the proportion of out-of-town customers viewing homes rose. However, overall market divergence continued, with improvement-oriented units in core areas selling well, while peripheral first-time buyer projects relied on discount promotions to drive volume.
From frontline data of intermediary agencies, from October 1–7, Shenzhen Leyoujia store new home project contract signings rose 30% month-on-month and 36% year-on-year; property viewing volume rose 101% month-on-month. Project-level performance diverged, with Guangming Zhenye Tianjing Yunting's additional launch selling well, and projects such as Nanshan's completed-home Tianyuan Huafu and Longhua's Zhongjiao Guorun Huafu receiving high market attention, while visitation and sell-through in most other areas remained stable.
For second-hand homes, during the holiday, Shenzhen Leyoujia store contract signings rose 25% month-on-month and 39% year-on-year; property viewing volume rose 47% month-on-month and 30% year-on-year, with overall growth slightly lower than new homes.
Guangzhou's National Day property market was mainly characterized by normal sales, with multiple projects launching limited-time discounts, brand appliance gifts with transactions, and fixed-price units as promotions. Some projects also proposed "mortgage payments starting after completion acceptance filing" to alleviate homebuyers' concerns about delivery progress. Transaction performance also diverged, with improvement-oriented projects in core areas seeing significant increases in visitation and transactions backed by location and supporting facilities advantages; some suburban first-time buyer projects attracted a batch of first-time buyers due to lower total prices and alignment with mortgage interest subsidy policy thresholds; most projects saw relatively stable sell-through.