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written by | sun yue

yesterday morning, "musk buys a house in beijing" was trending on the internet, but in the afternoon, tesla pointed out that it was "fake news". the source of the news was suspected to be a beijing real estate agent on a short video platform, saying that musk bought a courtyard house in the east third ring road, manhe beijing, for us$150 million.

it seems that the property market is having a long-awaited self-entertainment, but it is a pity that it is so short-lived. musk sold his last property in the united states in 2021. his dream is human migration to mars and the energy revolution on earth. when the news came out, the people of chaoyang were also confused. does a wealthy man with lofty ideals need to buy at the bottom of chaoyang district? if you want to live there yourself, xiangshan in the west of beijing is no more fragrant than the east third ring road.

according to the media "first financial daily" confirmed with the relevant person in charge of the manhe real estate, the owner of the latest transaction of the sky courtyard is a wealthy man from henan who purchased the house in the name of his company. the probability that his surname is ma and his name is sike is not high.

but elon musk did visit the property. in may 2023, during musk's 44-hour visit to china, he had dinner with zeng yuqun, chairman of catl, at manhe's private club, "huafu club", and discussed issues such as power battery technology.

musk's mother, maye, also came to manhe in september 2023 to attend the georges chakra (lebanese designer fashion brand) show. maye is currently signed to the beijing mcn company "caa innovation elite culture" (a joint venture between chinese culture and american creative artists agency), and has been reported to cooperate with many chinese brands such as oppo.

the real estate industry is no stranger to using celebrities to hype up properties. as early as the 2008 beijing olympics, there were rumors that bill gates spent 100 million yuan to rent a courtyard house in the "pangu grand view" sky courtyard next to the water cube for a year. at the time, reports indicated that the courtyard house was valued at 63 million yuan.

what exactly is the existence of beijing's "manhekongsi" which has hidden its merits and fame?

on september 5, the true story research office called the manhe sales office and learned that there are 9 buildings in the complex, 3 of which have sky courtyards on the top floors. the apartment that musk was hit by should be an apartment with an area of ​​1,500 square meters and a price of 800 million yuan. according to the staff, owners who buy this apartment usually use it for business receptions.

manhe is the only property in beijing that is included in hurun's "top ten landmark luxury homes in china in 2023". the current price starts at 75 million yuan per unit, and the average price of second-hand houses is 167,000 yuan per square meter. it was developed by beijing xinjingrun real estate co., ltd. in 2019 and jointly built by hopson development group (founded in hong kong, china in 1992, and developed properties such as zhujiang dijing in beijing) and adrian zecha (indonesian chinese), the founder of aman hotel.

the property is located in the yansha business district, one of the famous wealthy communities in beijing. it is less than 2 kilometers away from the embassies of the united states, france, japan and other countries. nearby are the kempinski hotel, hilton hotel, kunlun hotel, yansha friendship shopping mall, century theater, lido international primary school, german primary school, etc., with complete supporting facilities.

even more luxurious is its landscape value. the building complex overlooks chaoyang park, the largest urban park in asia, and overlooks china zun cbd in the south and wangjing in the north. in the pristine green belt downstairs, the top private club in beijing, huafu club, with an area of ​​14,500 square meters, is hidden. the boss behind the scenes is the youngest daughter of the boss of hopson development, who once studied in the finance department of the chinese people's university. it is a real courtyard building and has received international celebrities such as messi, the uae royal family, the saudi royal family, former spanish prime minister mariano rajoy brey, and former italian prime minister matteo renzi.

to view the sky courtyard property in person, you need to go through a capital verification process, which is simple and straightforward, and you just need to provide a screenshot of your account showing 100 million yuan.

it is said that hundreds of chinese business leaders own properties in manhe, but it now seems that the real estate circle still needs a higher-end overseas celebrity effect to create the beverly hills in beijing.

among the many legends about overseas buyers of beijing courtyard houses, only one sounds more credible.

20 years ago, it was rumored that media tycoon murdoch bought a courtyard house on beichizi street for 10 million yuan, next door to the world's largest courtyard house - the forbidden city. it is said that this courtyard house was given to murdoch's ex-wife wendi deng.

when musk bought a house in beijing, some people believed it at first. this is because musk has a close relationship with my country in terms of both core interests and commercial interests.

on the day when the news of musk's house purchase came out, tesla's official account "tesla ai" happened to announce the full self-driving fsd plan on the x platform. it is expected to launch the fsd system (full-self driving, fully autonomous driving) in china in the first quarter of 2025 and is currently awaiting approval from regulatory authorities.

on april 28 this year, musk was invited by the china council for the promotion of international trade to visit beijing. one of the core purposes was to promote the implementation of fsd in china. the outbreak of autonomous driving in china has entered the present tense, and tesla obviously does not want to miss this historical opportunity.

however, many media outlets believe that the first stop for tesla's fsd road test in china is likely to be shanghai rather than beijing. if you want to buy a house, isn't shanghai closer?

in addition to immediate interests, musk also has strategic interests rooted in the chinese market for many years. this is one of the reasons why some people believe that musk's purchase of a house in beijing is mainly to send a goodwill signal.

in 2023, tesla model y sales in china exceeded 600,000 units, surpassing byd song, qin, and yuan to become the best-selling model. tesla's profit per vehicle is 8 times higher than byd's, so musk cannot ignore the chinese market.

at the same time, from september 5th to 7th, the 2024 inclusion bund conference, which is committed to promoting cutting-edge technology exploration, opened at the shanghai huangpu expo park. tesla brought its latest hardcore products - the cyber ​​​​off-road travel vehicle and the optimus humanoid robot to the show.

the latter will begin limited production next year, and the tesla factory in shanghai is expected to undertake the production task. the chinese supply chain is the key for musk to reduce the cost of robots from hundreds of thousands of dollars to 10,000 or 20,000 dollars. "it is not a bad idea to show a more friendly attitude." this is the imagination of some people.

however, people who are familiar with musk know that he has his own grand ambitions, and making huge investments in china is enough. why does he have to express his ambitions by buying an apartment? are we underestimating him?

in fact, when musk sold off "the last property in the world" in 2021, he wrote an article explaining his view on money: "this is for freedom... i don't need cash. i dedicate myself to mars and earth. what you own will only crush you. wealth makes people feel depressed. after selling the property, others will not attack me because i am a billionaire, so i will consider renting a house in the future."

according to public information, musk himself does not own any real estate.

musk's purchase of a house is just a fake carnival among some people in the beijing real estate market. the general public speculates whether the luxury housing market is trying to boost buying momentum by releasing such news to attract attention and money.

judging from the public market conditions, beijing's luxury housing market has also seen a temperature difference recently. luxury homes in good locations are not lacking in demand, while those in less attractive locations have relatively weak transaction volumes.

let’s look at the best sellers first. on june 29, 2024, zhonghai jinghua jiuxu, located in the west second ring road of beijing with an average housing price of 175,000 yuan/㎡, sold 6.2 billion yuan on the first day of sale, without any publicity and promotion. an industry insider commented that “this is a real estate project with almost no competitors in beijing”. in less than a month after the opening, the online signing amount reached 7.852 billion yuan.

tiantan mansion, located on the east second ring road, is one of the two hottest luxury housing projects in beijing in 2023, with online sales of 12.021 billion yuan, ranking first in the beijing market.

it is worth noting that the wealth confidence in purchasing luxury homes shown in beijing is not a single city effect. it is also present in first-tier cities such as shanghai and guangzhou, reflecting the convergence psychology of high-net-worth users today.

however, the transaction volume of luxury homes with poorer locations and supporting facilities seems to be less optimistic, which has aggravated the overall cooling of the market.

back to manhe, there were unconfirmed reports a few years ago that there were still houses in the process of being sold. as for second-hand houses, i learned from the real estate agency stores near the building that there were very few transactions in the building. "owners generally don't sell their houses unless they plan to move abroad and need to cash out all the properties."

musk's purchase of a house is likely to continue the hype and publicity effect of the real estate industry ten years ago. as a developer, if you really disclosed the owner's personal information, given musk's personality, he would have sent you the documents long ago.

the dream is over, let’s just go our separate ways.