【Epoch Times News, June 26, 2025】Once a city filled with state-owned enterprises and a booming real estate market, Tianjin is now deeply mired in the quagmire of a complete collapse in the property sector. Plummeting housing prices, a stagnant market, job losses for workers, vacant storefronts, state-owned enterprises withholding wages – this city is going through an unprecedented “nightmare”. Especially for those who had dreams of settling down by buying a home, Tianjin has turned into a massive trap. For many, this may be the most difficult year they have ever faced.
According to cases shared on social media platforms by several local independent bloggers, in Tianjin’s Binhai New Area, there is a striking example: a standard three-bedroom apartment that was once priced at 3.78 million yuan, now has a listing price of only 630,000 yuan. This is not a special discount or a stalled project; it’s a living example of a high-end buyer losing all their investment.
A web industry worker who returned from Beijing to Tianjin in 2019 borrowed money to buy this house, hoping to settle down. However, with industry changes and company layoffs, he unfortunately lost his job, defaulted on the mortgage, owing the bank hundreds of thousands of yuan, and even with a reduced listing price, there were no takers for the house.
Another female homeowner from Wuqing District in Tianjin expressed deep sorrow on social media, stating that their family had bought a 120-square-meter home for 2.88 million yuan, but its market value has now plummeted to only 650,000 yuan. She bluntly said, “We have lost the retirement funds of our parents and in-laws, truly unfilial.” She revealed that shortly after purchasing the house, both she and her husband lost their jobs and fell into bankruptcy.
Many Tianjin homeowners have expressed on social platforms that “the sky is falling” in Tianjin – the prices of commercial properties have dropped to unbelievably low levels. Furthermore, a blogger gave an example that in the Jinxiu Xiangjiang Kangnai Xuan residential complex in Baodi District, a large one-bedroom unit (including furnishings) is selling for only 130,000 yuan, at a unit price of about 1,648 yuan per square meter, while its original selling price was as high as 600,000 yuan.
Bloggers from “Dark Financial Research Institute” commented, “Housing prices used to be the lifelong belief of the Chinese people, but now this faith is slowly crumbling; many people have depleted their entire family savings to buy a house, turning it from an asset into a deep debt pit.” In the vicious cycle of collapsing housing prices, the risks of financial institutions such as banks are also exposed, and this crisis continues to profoundly affect all aspects of Tianjin.
The housing market in Tianjin is not slowly declining, but showing a trend of “vertical collapse”.
As observed by several bloggers, many new property developments are seeing scarce visitors on their opening days, model units remain deserted, and the sales staff at the sales offices outnumber the visitors. Developers are desperate, even resorting to banners and unprecedented promotions such as “buy a house, get a parking space, property management, renovation, and ten years of maintenance for free.” However, the market still remains bleak. As one blogger put it, the people are no longer willing to “gamble on Tianjin”.
The once glorious Binhai New Area, known for high-tech industrial parks and free trade zone concept properties, has now turned into a “ghost town”. Looking at it at night, rows of high-rise buildings remain dark, office buildings are empty without any companies. Office rents have plummeted from 80 yuan per square meter per month in 2019 to the current 20 yuan, yet there are no takers.
Those who once turned their lives around by flipping houses and becoming landlords, the “happy middle class”, are now burdened with debts, unable to rent out or sell their properties, and swapping homes has become a luxury. Many feel they must continue paying even if the property remains vacant.
In this background, the operational difficulties of real estate companies are also becoming increasingly apparent. A notice circulating within Tianjin homeowner groups indicates that Rongxin (Fujian) Investment Group Limited’s Tianjin Rongju Real Estate Co., Ltd. is considering applying for bankruptcy liquidation.
Rongxin Group, founded in 2003, is a nationally developed real estate enterprise and was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in January 2016 (stock name: Rongxin China). According to reports, Rongxin Group made a bold entry into the Tianjin market in 2017, investing a staggering 2.1 billion yuan to win two plots of land in a single day.
However, their first project in Tianjin, “Tianjin Rongxin West Coast” has been stalled for five or six years, causing significant losses to homebuyers. In July 2022, Rongxin disclosed that the company had two outstanding dollar debts that could not be paid.
A Tianjin blogger pointed out that the bankruptcy liquidation application of Tianjin Rongju Real Estate indicates that their projects are at a standstill, and the developer is unable to repay debts. Although some homeowners who purchased units in this project hope that the company will refund their purchase amount, the blogger made it clear that this is an almost impossible hope.
The impact of the housing market collapse is spreading throughout the entire city. According to Tianjin netizens, some state-owned enterprises have not issued salaries for half a year, and some have resorted to distributing “loan vouchers” instead of salaries. Some companies have started actively encouraging employees over 40 years old to resign, leaving grassroots employees in even more dire straits. When employees seek help from their superiors, they are met with responses like, “I don’t even have a salary myself, I have no way.” Ordinary families are on the brink of collapse under multiple pressures.