In Tianjin’s Wuqing, the housing prices of the “Tianjin Innovative New Beijing Peninsula Project” have plummeted dramatically from 1.6 million yuan to 390,000 yuan, sparking widespread attention as the information trended online. Homeowners have expressed their dismay, with one saying, “The current selling price of my unit is basically one-third of the original price, and some properties have even dropped to one-fourth of the peak price for sale.” “Even with the price drop, it’s difficult to sell now, so we can only rent it out cheaply,” they added.
Recently, an article titled “The housing prices in our neighborhood have dropped to 390,000 yuan, welcome to Tianjin Wuqing to be our neighbor” has been circulated on the internet, garnering over 100,000 views. The article mentioned that in the Tianjin Innovative New Beijing Peninsula Project, an 83-square-meter two-bedroom unit that was once priced over 1.6 million yuan during its peak is now being sold for less than 390,000 yuan. Due to the significant drop in housing prices, the project has generated discussions on platforms like Xiaohongshu and Douyin.
On July 1st, the “China Real Estate News” reported that during a visit to the Tianjin Wuqing District on June 22nd, multiple sources including homeowners, agents, property service staff, and project workers confirmed the aforementioned situation regarding the Innovative New Beijing Peninsula Project.
In the period of 2016 to 2017, the project was at its peak with some high-rise units reaching a selling price of 20,000 yuan per square meter. An 83-square-meter unit was priced at around 1.6 million yuan. Fast forward to the present, the selling prices for new units in the same project have dropped to around 7,000 yuan per square meter, with similar resale units being priced between 400,000 to 500,000 yuan per unit, according to a local agent. Some urgently selling units have dropped to 390,000 yuan per unit, reflecting the market conditions.
The years 2016 to 2017 were the hottest period for the surrounding Beijing housing market. However, following various factors such as policies and the pandemic, projects like this one fell into a long period of stagnation.
Eight years have passed since, and the “investors” have long left the Beijing market, leaving behind the “end users” with different worries and expectations.
The project by the “Innovative Real Estate Co., Ltd.” in Tianjin is one of its largest projects with a planned construction area of 2 million square meters, divided into several groups developed successively, each group featuring a different style and named as different communities, including Shelly Town, Menorca Town, Ibiza Town, Caviar Yard, Xirui Courtyard, and Duovishiguang, among others.
The earliest opening of the project was in October 2011, mainly selling villas at an average price of 10,000 yuan per square meter, later pushing high-rise units at an average of 6,000 yuan per square meter. This price level was maintained until 2015.
In 2016, there was a significant change. With the Beijing property market booming, the spillover effect spread to areas like Yanshao in Hebei and Wuqing in Tianjin. Although the Tianjin project did not see as strong an increase in prices as some popular projects in Yanshao, prices doubled, and there was even a situation of high demand and low supply with high-rise units reaching over 20,000 yuan per square meter and villas surging to 26,000 yuan per square meter in the years 2016 to 2017.
However, with factors like purchase restrictions and the pandemic, the project rapidly cooled down, witnessing a steep decline in housing prices.
On March 31, 2017, Tianjin officially announced real estate purchase restrictions: non-Tianjin households with one or more existing properties, Tianjin households with two or more properties, and single adults including unmarried and divorced individuals with one or more properties were temporarily suspended from buying new commercial residential properties in Tianjin (excluding Binhai New Area); non-Tianjin households purchasing homes within Tianjin needed to provide proof of paying social insurance or individual income tax for at least two years within three years in Tianjin.
Due to the large number of customers coming from Beijing, after the new policy was implemented, the number of qualified customers drastically decreased, leading to a drop in prices for resale high-rise units to 12,000 yuan per square meter and villas to 15,000 yuan per square meter between 2017 and 2018.
Over the past three years of the pandemic from 2020 to 2023, the prices of resale units within the Innovative International Peninsula have been on a downward trend, with prices essentially halved by the end of 2022. In 2024, Xirui Courtyard is still selling new units, with the project lowering its price to around 7,000 yuan per square meter, with a total price of only around 490,000 yuan for a 69-square-meter two-bedroom unit, while resale properties have seen even greater price reductions.
From the name “New Beijing Peninsula” of this project, it is evident that the target customer group is largely the “northern drift” population.
How is the current occupancy rate of the project? A property staff member in the community mentioned, “Due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in the past few years, some of the planned commercial facilities have not been fully developed as promised, with only basic daily living amenities available in the vicinity, and little to no entertainment options.”
In fact, it’s not just the Innovative New Beijing Peninsula Project facing such challenges; the entire surrounding Beijing housing market has entered a freezing period in recent years.
In 2023, major developers like Longjitaihe Group and Huaxia Happiness Group went bankrupt and underwent reorganization.
Looking at the overall real estate market in Wuqing District, Tianjin, according to Fang.com data, from 2021 to 2024, the resale housing prices in Wuqing have shown a consistent declining trend. In May of this year, the area saw 1,090 transactions, a decrease of 16.42%.
Regarding the situation of these projects, Lai Naichao, the President of the Beijing Residential Real Estate Industry Association, explained that there are two fundamental reasons for the steep price cuts and dwindling transactions in such projects: firstly, the national real estate market is still in an adjustment period, with low public confidence in the property market, especially in tier-one and tier-two cities which are yet to recover. Thus, projects dependent on Beijing development like the surrounding areas are more significantly impacted. Secondly, the development of any regional property market needs to consider factors like population and industry. Previously, the surrounding Beijing area had many heavily-polluting old industries that have gradually moved out in recent years, and the inflow and development of new industries take time, directly affecting population migration and property market growth.