Market Uncertainty Intensifies, Why Does Beike Become More Stable the More It Adjusts?

Listing | Zhongfangwang

Review | Li Xiaoyan

On March 16, Beike (NYSE:BEKE; HKEX:2423) released its Q4 2025 and full-year earnings. Despite deep adjustments in the real estate market and industry-wide pressures, the company demonstrated strong resilience: net revenue increased 1% year-over-year to 94.6 billion yuan, net profit was 2.99 billion yuan, and adjusted net profit reached 5.02 billion yuan. The volume of second-hand transactions hit a record high with an 11% YoY growth, non-property transaction revenue accounted for a peak of 41%, home renovation revenue reached 15.4 billion yuan, setting a new high, and leasing business achieved profitability for the first time in a full year. These core data points confirm that Beike is shifting from scale-driven growth to efficiency and value-driven development, leveraging a diversified “transaction + home renovation + leasing” structure to navigate cycles, reconstructing service capabilities through AI technology, and exploring a new path of high-quality growth under industry normalization.

In 2025, the real estate market enters a period of deep adjustment characterized by slowing overall volume and optimized structure, with common challenges such as reduced transaction momentum and increased destocking pressure. Beike adheres to the operating principle of “not solely scale, focusing on quality,” proactively optimizing its business structure, with core transaction business maintaining steady progress and improving both quality and efficiency.

The existing property business performed outstandingly, with full-year net revenue of 25.02 billion yuan, and second-hand transaction volume on the platform increased 11% YoY, reaching a record high. The platform ecosystem continued to improve, with non-Lianjia channels contributing about 63% of GTV from existing homes. Non-Lianjia second-hand transaction volume grew 15% YoY, further consolidating the light-asset, platform-strong model, significantly enhancing revenue stability. Agent productivity continued to improve, with non-Lianjia agents’ average second-hand transactions rising from less than 2 per person in 2022 to 3, with professional skills and efficiency simultaneously enhanced.

The new home business persisted in its “confirmed delivery” transformation, with total transaction GTV reaching 890.9 billion yuan, outperforming the industry average. Beike broke away from traditional traffic distribution logic, providing developers with full-chain services including early research, marketing planning, and efficient destocking, upgrading the new home business from channel intermediary to comprehensive service provider. During the reporting period, the profit margin contribution from new homes increased by 0.2 percentage points YoY, and the profit margin from existing homes rebounded in Q4, demonstrating continued resilience in core transaction profitability.

Objectively, due to the overall decline in market transaction volume, the company’s total GTV decreased YoY. However, amid the industry downturn, Beike leveraged its platform advantages, channel coverage, and service standardization to achieve volume growth, optimize structure, and improve profit margins, demonstrating stronger risk resistance and market competitiveness.

Beike’s “One Body, Three Wings” strategy has shown remarkable results, with non-property transaction businesses accelerating growth to become a core force in resisting cyclical fluctuations and unlocking growth potential. By 2025, non-property transaction revenue share increased to 41%, making the business structure more balanced and cyclical-resistant, marking Beike’s evolution from a single property transaction platform to a comprehensive service platform covering the entire residential lifecycle.

The home renovation and furnishing business entered a stage of high-quality growth, with full-year net revenue of 15.4 billion yuan, up 4.4% YoY, and profit margin contribution increased to 31.4%, up 0.7 percentage points. The company slowed expansion, focusing on building replicable and scalable professional services through modular products, standardized model homes, and BIM intelligent design tools to improve designer productivity; promoted nationwide and local bulk procurement, covering about 80% of main materials and 60% of auxiliary materials, effectively enhancing bargaining power and quality control stability. The professionalization of home renovation project managers saw a monthly transaction volume increase of over 100%, with efficiency and profitability improving in tandem, leading the business into a healthy, sustainable growth path.

The housing leasing business achieved a historic breakthrough, turning profitable at the operational level for the first time. By year-end, managed properties exceeded 700,000 units, up 62% YoY; net revenue reached 21.9 billion yuan, a 52.8% increase; profit margin contribution rose 3.6 percentage points to 8.6%. Under policies promoting both rental and purchase, Beike entered the leasing market with professional management, digital operations, and standardized services, connecting the full chain from “receiving the property—pricing—operation—releasing,” meeting the housing needs of new urban residents and young people, and establishing stable cash flow and profit sources, becoming a key pillar of the platform.

The rapid rise of non-property businesses has broken Beike’s reliance on traditional property transactions, forming a healthy pattern of “stable transaction foundation, increased home renovation profits, expanded cash flow from leasing.” The synergy among diversified businesses ensures the company remains resilient amid market fluctuations, laying a solid foundation for long-term development.

In response to the AI wave, Beike is committed to a “human-machine collaboration” approach, positioning AI as a core productivity element for upgrading residential services, empowering service providers through technology, and enhancing competitiveness through efficiency. Peng Yongdong pointed out that real estate transactions involve both rational calculation and emotional judgment—AI cannot be ignored, and humans cannot be replaced. AI maximizes rational efficiency, while service providers amplify emotional value, and their collaboration drives service upgrades.

In the real estate transaction sector, Beike has built an “AI Studio” system: AIGC automatically generates marketing content and handles initial customer interactions; AI CRM provides precise customer insights and strategic advice; AI training tools capture benchmark experiences and narrow service gaps. Agents are freed from basic tasks like listing and repetitive inquiries, allowing them to focus more on understanding needs and closing deals, thereby improving per capita output and customer experience simultaneously.

In leasing, AI forms a closed-loop core strategy: AI deeply participates in receiving properties, pricing, inventory scheduling, and resource allocation. Pilot regions saw a 13% increase in agent efficiency for receiving properties, and AI-based pricing improved rental success rates by 5.3 percentage points compared to manual pricing. Asset management managers oversee over 120 properties per person per month, a more than 40% YoY increase, with operational efficiency and management scale reaching new heights.

The deep application of AI not only drives record-high productivity and output but also transforms service logic—from relying on store scale to resource conversion efficiency and unit output enhancement. Technology reduces operational costs, optimizes service processes, and improves decision-making certainty, enabling the platform to maintain service warmth while achieving scaled, standardized, and refined operations.

On the financial front, Beike adheres to prudent management, continuously optimizing cost structure and unit economics, with steady improvements in operational efficiency. In 2025, the proportion of operating expenses to net revenue decreased by 1.4 percentage points YoY, reflecting effective cost control; profit margins from new and existing home businesses steadily improved, with overall profitability quality continuously enhanced.

Executive Director and CFO Xu Tao stated that the company is implementing efficiency initiatives to optimize cost structure and strengthen operational resilience. In 2026, Beike will maintain prudent financial discipline, continue optimizing capital allocation, improve governance, and promote sustainable, steady growth. A healthy financial position, controllable expenses, and a continuously improving profit model provide strong support for the company to navigate market uncertainties and invest in technology and business development.

Strategically, Beike is advancing three major upgrades: First, service logic upgrade—shifting from transaction services to full-process decision-making services to enhance professionalism and certainty; second, technological capability upgrade—using AI to reshape workflows and optimize resource allocation, amplifying service provider expertise; third, ecosystem capability upgrade—building systematic services around the residential lifecycle to achieve deep integration of property transactions, home renovation, leasing, and asset management.

During this critical industry transformation period, Beike’s 2025 financial report sends a clear signal: the true ability to navigate cycles comes from continuously creating real value for consumers. The growth model relying solely on scale expansion is no longer sustainable. High-quality development centered on efficiency, quality, and value has become the industry and enterprise’s shared choice.

In the short term, the real estate market remains in adjustment, with uncertain recovery pace, and some business segments may face temporary pressures. However, in the medium to long term, policies promoting rental and purchase, rising demand for residential services, and the proliferation of digital and AI technologies will open broad opportunities for platform leaders. With its nationwide service network, standardized service system, diversified business structure, and leading technological capabilities, Beike has established a competitive moat that is difficult to replicate.

From record-breaking second-hand transaction volumes to non-property business surpassing 40%, from steady growth in home renovation to full-year profitability in leasing, from AI-driven productivity boosts to ongoing financial optimization, Beike’s resilient financial results demonstrate the correctness of its strategic transformation and the advanced nature of its operating model. On the path of high-quality industry development, Beike continues to advance residential services with stability as the foundation, efficiency as the wings, and value as the soul, driving industry upgrades and creating long-term value for consumers, service providers, shareholders, and society. Its ability to grow through cycles and its long-term investment value remain confidently recognized by the market.