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Zhu Wenqian

Chinese technology companies establishing new headquarters and offices in northern cities around Beijing are expected to boost local rental demand, but analysts say home sales growth will be far milder than the surges delivered by traditional tech firms in previous years.
Local governments hoping that red-hot artificial intelligence or chip companies setting up headquarters or research and development centres would lift slumping property markets as in the previous cycle were likely to be disappointed, analysts said.
Most recently, Chinese e-commerce firm Pinduoduo signed an agreement with Power Construction Corp of China on June 21 to move into an e-commerce industrial park in Xiongan New Area, in China’s northern Hebei province. The region, some 100km from Beijing, is envisioned by President Xi Jinping as an innovation hub. The deal marks Pinduoduo’s first property acquisition.
Earlier this month, the company registered a wholly owned subsidiary in Xiongan, with its first group of 150 staff starting work. Pinduoduo also launched a recruitment drive to hire more than 5,000 employees, according to the company.
“The link between corporate investment and home purchases appears weaker than in the past,” said Lulu Shi, director of Asia-Pacific corporate ratings at Fitch Ratings. “Even when a new tech or AI company creates jobs and attracts talent, employees may be more cautious about buying homes, given the still-soft employment sentiment in China.”
Incoming staff were more likely to rent first rather than buy, Shi said, with the most visible near-term effect likely to be on the rental market.

Whether this eventually translated into a broader uplift in local property markets depends on factors including supportive policies, hiring scale, transport and education resources, housing supply and the broader real estate cycle, she added.
China’s property sector, once accounting for roughly a quarter of the economy, has remained sluggish since late 2020. Falling home prices have eroded household wealth, though analysts said confidence was gradually recovering as stabilisation policies took effect.
For Xiongan, a city of 1.4 million residents, the incremental workforce brought by Pinduoduo could not be overlooked, said Yan Yuejin, vice-president of Shanghai-based E-house China Research and Development Institute.
“Its spillover impact on rental demand for commercial residential projects is worthy of close monitoring,” Yan said, adding that staff salaries would align with local rather than first-tier city standards, curbing purchasing power.
“Pinduoduo’s long-term support for Xiongan’s property market lies in whether it can draw clustered upstream and downstream businesses,” Yan said.
Meanwhile, mid-tier chipmaker Biren Technology set up its northern headquarters in Tianjin Port Free Trade Zone in late May. It planned to build a full industrial chain for computing power R&D and innovative applications to attract upstream and downstream AI enterprises to cluster locally, the company said.
“Tianjin has abundant existing residential supply, so adding several hundred to a thousand high-income staff will only deliver a marginal impact,” Yan said. “This can’t match the transformative zero-to-one growth like what Huawei triggered in less developed areas such as Qingpu in suburban Shanghai.”
Its impact on the local property market was expected to be confined to mid- to high-end rentals nearby, with limited spillover across the region, he added. Even so, the firm’s high-spending young talent was expected to support surrounding residential submarkets.
In the past, tech giants like Alibaba Group Holding, Huawei Technologies and Tencent Holdings pushed up housing prices in Hangzhou, in China’s eastern Zhejiang province, and Shenzhen after establishing headquarters locally.
Major internet firms like JD, Alibaba and ByteDance have ramped up large-scale property acquisitions in recent years. In March, a ByteDance subsidiary purchased office and R&D land in Beijing’s Haidian district for 3.31 billion yuan (US$487 million), its second land purchase in the capital in half a year.
In Shenzhen, multiple luxury residential projects sold out rapidly in May, with young professionals from the semiconductor and AI industries overtaking traditional wealthy investors as the most active homebuyers.
“As China’s tech innovation hub, Shenzhen’s tech-driven wealth growth supports its high-end property market, and its growing pool of high-net-worth residents fuels demand for premium homes,” Yan said.
Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.


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The new headquarters may boost rentals, but local home sales growth is likely to be far milder than surges in previous years, analysts say


The new headquarters may boost rentals, but local home sales growth is likely to be far milder than surges in previous years, analysts say.


Will China’s new northern tech bases in Hebei and Tianjin spark local housing demand?

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The new headquarters may boost rentals, but local home sales growth is likely to be far milder than surges in previous years, analysts say

The new headquarters may boost rentals, but local home sales growth is likely to be far milder than surges in previous years, analysts say