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Policy signals are becoming increasingly clear, and the direction of residential consumption has changed. Recently, the Beijing Municipal People's Government issued the "Beijing 15th Five-Year Plan for Deepening the Construction of an International Consumption Center City" (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan"), which clearly proposed to continuously promote the construction of safe, comfortable, green, and smart "good homes." Since October, places such as Qingdao in Shandong and Shunde in Guangdong have also successively implemented construction guidelines for "good homes." As the construction of "good homes" has been written into the government work report for two consecutive years, all regions are advancing "good home" projects. This series of actions reflects an important trend: the main line of residential consumption in the real estate industry is shifting from "having a home to live in" to "living in a good home." This is not a simple product upgrade, but a switch in the logic of residential consumption. In the past, the real estate industry mainly addressed "having a place to live"; now it must focus more on "living in a livable place."
First, the logic of home buying is changing, and demand for improvement-driven replacement is expanding. The upgrading of residential consumption is first reflected in the transaction structure. According to PTI Pury Smart Cloud statistics, in the first three quarters of 2026, the share of new home transactions nationwide for units of 110 square meters to 140 square meters rose to 37.1%, up 2.5 percentage points year on year; the share of new home transactions for units below 110 square meters fell 2.6 percentage points year on year. Among them, second-tier cities had the highest share of new home transactions in the 110 square meters to 140 square meters range, reaching 38.1%, up 3.9 percentage points year on year. The national new home transaction structure continues to shift toward larger unit sizes, driven by three main factors: first, the share of rigid-demand transactions is declining, with improvement-driven replacement demand taking over; second, real estate developers are proactively upgrading their product mix; third, policies and land supply are tilting toward improvement-oriented products. The acceleration of "good home" projects and the continued rollout of "trade-in" policies are both intended to better satisfy improvement-driven replacement demand. Monitoring by the China Index Academy shows that more than 130 cities nationwide have implemented housing "trade-in" policies; combined with the share of second-hand home transactions nationwide exceeding 50% in the first half of 2026, the "quality renewal" chain of "selling the old and buying the new" is accelerating. These changes show that residents' decision-making focus when buying homes has shifted from "can it appreciate" to caring more about "is it comfortable to live in." This shift is continuing to drive changes across the entire residential consumption chain.
Second, the smart home decoration sector is changing, with whole-home intelligence moving from an "optional item" to a "preferred item." "Quality renewal" is not limited to the house itself, but also to what is "inside" the house. The smart standards of "good homes" are being translated step by step into a perceptible "renewal" of daily life. The "Plan" clearly proposes guiding the development of prefabricated decoration and whole-home smart IoT, driving consumption across the entire home appliance and furnishing chain. This means smart homes are moving from single-product intelligence toward whole-home intelligence, and the penetration rate of whole-home intelligence will rise rapidly. This is a sizable market. Even excluding the market size of fully furnished new home deliveries, there are about 400 million existing homes nationwide, and the corresponding home decoration market could theoretically reach trillions of yuan each year. Among this, smart home products are becoming the "preferred item" for quality consumption in the home decoration market. Research firm IDC predicts that China's smart home market shipments will exceed 300 million units in 2026. The "2026 Forecast of Development Trends in the Home Appliance Service Industry and Emerging Markets" released by the China Household Electrical Appliance Service and Repair Association shows that in 2026 the penetration rate of the whole-home smart system market will exceed 35%, and the development path will move from "single-product intelligence" toward "spatial cognition." Household scenarios are rising as one of the important tracks in housing consumption. The interaction interface of smart home decoration systems is also evolving from screen touch toward a multimodal integration of voice, vision, and environmental perception. The "home" is upgrading from a living space into an intelligent service terminal integrating health monitoring, entertainment and social interaction, and remote work.
Third, the value of services is changing, from "buying a house" to "buying a lifestyle." As "good homes" extend from hardware to software, the importance of "good services" becomes more prominent. At present, the real estate industry is shifting from scale expansion to quality competition. The value of a home is being measured not only by the hardware configurations reflected in the sales model under the presale system, such as unit layout, landscaping, and clubhouses, but also by community services and living experience after delivery under the existing-home sales system. In the past, when buying a home, people followed the map and asked about "location"; in the future, they will care more about whether the real-scene experience and services are good enough. Property management services, as an important part of whole-life-cycle housing management, run through the entire use phase after housing delivery. They are both a guarantee for hardware maintenance and a scenario carrier for the implementation of smart services. High-quality property service enterprises, relying on community scenarios, can connect diverse needs such as housing maintenance, partial renovation, smart equipment operation and maintenance, and age-friendly renovation, opening a channel between owners' renovation needs and supply resources. From the characteristics of second-hand housing transactions, good property services have become a key bonus for maintaining and increasing property value. Overall, the shift in the main line of residential consumption is both a pragmatic response to the stock era and an injection of more new momentum into housing consumption. Companies upstream and downstream in the real estate industry chain should also seize the opportunity in line with the trend, promote product research and development, upgrade community services, and effectively meet residents' aspirations for a better life.
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