Economics & Finance / Industry & Sectors / Real Estate & Housing

Channels Moving to the Front End of New Home Development

As China's real estate market shifts from a seller's market to a buyer's market, the traditional development model—driven by historical experience and ""guessing"" customer needs—is facing a crisis of ""high risk and low tolerance for error"". In response, Beike (KE Holdings), China's largest property transaction platform, has launched the ""Beihaojia"" (Bei Home) business line to pioneer a C2M (Customer to Manufacturer) model driven by Big Data. The Experiment: Data-Driven Development Beike tested this model through two self-operated ""experimental projects"": a mass-market project in Shanghai (Beilian C1) and a luxury project in Chengdu (Beichen S1). Unlike traditional developers, Beihaojia intervenes in the entire process—from land acquisition to product design—using Beike’s massive database, which includes secondary market transaction records, customer behavior patterns, and a ""Building Dictionary"" covering 240 million homes. Key Innovations and Challenges: • Customer Verification: Design decisions are based on thousands of questionnaires and deep interviews with potential buyers. For instance, the Chengdu project adjusted building orientations to prioritize views over traditional compass directions because 72% of surveyed high-end clients preferred it. • Precision vs. Cost: While the data-driven approach yields high ""lead quality"" (e.g., the Chengdu project converted 20+ sales from 30 targeted leads), it often leads to higher construction costs and slower development cycles due to constant validation. • The ""Conversion Gap"": There is an ongoing debate about whether ""expressed needs"" in surveys translate to actual purchases. In some cases, buyers still prioritize price and delivery certainty over specialized design features. Strategic Ambition: Beike clarifies that it does not intend to become a traditional developer. Instead, it aims to be a ""data-driven service platform"" and a partner for developers, leveraging its vast agent network (which handles 30% of China’s secondary sales) and its strong capital reserves (55.7 billion RMB) to share risks and drive sales. While some developers welcome this ""external brain,"" others are wary that Beike's dominance over data and channels might eventually lead to developers losing their primary decision-making power.