China’s housing “operating system” is shifting from transaction leverage to living-services resilience—BEKE’s ACN moat and cash-backed buybacks create asymmetric upside despite macro and regulatory overhang.
Overview
Ke Holdings (BEKE), via Beike and legacy brokerage Lianjia, operates China’s leading residential real estate transaction and services ecosystem, combining online decision tools with offline execution at national scale. Its core differentiator is the Agent Cooperation Network (ACN), a proprietary operating system that standardizes listings and incentivizes cooperation, addressing the historic trust deficit in China’s brokerage market. BEKE monetizes existing-home transactions (Lianjia commissions and connected-brand fees), new-home agency commissions from developers, and fast-growing “non-transactional” businesses—renovation/furnishing and rentals—which reached ~41% of 2025 revenue and improved diversification. Despite a -5% GTV decline in 2025, revenue held at RMB 94.6B as the company pivoted from scale to efficiency, expanding AI use and lowering fixed costs. Profitability was pressured by one-off optimization charges, but financial strength is notable (RMB 55.6B cash/short-term investments). Management used this to return ~US$1.2B in 2025 via dividends and buybacks, reinforcing confidence in BEKE’s long-term role as “industry infrastructure” as China transitions toward a service-centric housing model.