Chengdu's "haunted house" goes on the auction block for the third time, with the starting price now below 2,000 yuan per square meter. Nearly 50k people are watching—who dares to take a chance?

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（Source: 财闻）

          Recently, a set of commodity residential property listed on Alibaba Auction in Chengdu, Sichuan, has drawn widespread attention.            

According to the platform information, the property is located at Qianju Chaoyang, No. 26 Shuangqing Road, Chenghua District, Chengdu. The building area is 89.7㎡, the layout is two bedrooms, two living rooms, and one bathroom. It will go up for auction on April 14. Notably, the property’s starting bid total is 166k yuan, which works out to a unit price of about 1,851 yuan/㎡, clearly not in line with current market prices for similar listings in the area.

Screenshot from Alibaba Auction

Appearing on the auction platform three times—yet it’s actually a “murder house”

As of the time of publication, the seized property has attracted 49k views and has 39 people registered. What has made it especially notable is that the property is in fact a “murder house.”

The description of the subject property states, “In May 2024, a couple of tenants had an accidental homicide due to a dispute.”

In addition, this property is not the first time it has appeared on the auction platform. According to Alibaba asset auction records, the property was listed for auction in November 2025 and January 2026, and both times it was ultimately successfully成交.

Among them, in November 2025, the property was auctioned with a starting bid of 266k yuan. The market price was 1.65 million yuan. At that time, 92 people registered to participate. Ultimately, after 40 rounds of bidding, it was成交 at 166k yuan.

What’s surprising is that just two months later, the property “appeared” on the Alibaba Auction platform again. In this auction, the property’s starting price was still 266k yuan, but the number of registrants dropped sharply to only 24 people, and the final成交 price was 966k yuan.

However, media reports say that the owner who won the bid for the property was unable to successfully gather the funds for personal reasons, so the transaction could not be completed and the owner had to back out of the bid. They also had a 50k yuan deposit deducted, meaning the resold auction could not successfully transfer ownership. This is also the main reason the property was listed again this time.

In response, 财闻 sought verification from the platform’s customer service. The representative said that the reason the property was listed again is generally that the previous winning bidder backed out of the bid, and they also reminded that the property is a murder house, advising buyers to consider comprehensively.

Average listing price of secondhand homes in the community is 16,018 yuan/㎡ Total price for same-area listings is 1.55 million

The residential community where the auctioned property is located is Qianju Chaoyang. In the platform introduction, the community was built in 2008, with two phases. This property is in Phase One, which has two tiers of underground parking garages and elevator apartments, with a slab building structure. The community auctions only the building containing the auctioned units, with a total height of 26 floors; the other buildings are 18 floors, with 2 units per floor and 4 households per floor. The property management company is Changda Property, and the property fee is 1.58 yuan.

The information also mentions that the community has an on-site swimming pool, tennis courts, and table tennis courts, with pedestrian and vehicle traffic separated. Next to it is the Shahe River. Within a 2-kilometer range is the Tazishan Park, and it is also relatively close to subway stations and Wanda City-area supporting facilities.

Image source/Alibaba Auction

财闻, on the Beike secondhand housing platform, saw that there are currently 73 secondhand homes in the community being listed. The average listing price is 16,018 yuan/㎡. In the past 90 days, one unit was成交, and in the past 30 days, agents have shown the property 522 times.

Among the listed properties, 财闻 noticed that there is a high-floor secondhand home listed 7 days ago in the same building as the unit in this judicial auction, with the same building area of 89.7㎡. Its total listing price is 1.55 million yuan, which works out to a unit price of about 17,280 yuan/㎡.

Based on this comparison, in terms of price alone, the property’s starting bid price is indeed enticing.

The starting bid looks like great value, but the “implicit costs” are not low

The property’s first auction成交 at 49k yuan. Many people consider it a “bargain pickup,” but in fact, after some intermediaries calculated the numbers, they found that once you add additional expenditures such as the platform service fee, taxes and fees, and costs related to clearing the premises, the actual amount invested will exceed 1.3 million yuan.

In the auction platform’s information, it is noted that the rent-related收益 and expenses such as unpaid water, electricity, gas, and property management fees involved with the auctioned subject are collected and borne by the original landlord before the transfer of property rights is completed; after the transfer is completed, they are collected and borne by the buyer.

Besides the above, compared with ordinary secondhand homes, the “murder house” also faces the risk of extremely poor liquidity, and many banks choose to refuse mortgages. This also means that buyers will most likely need to purchase with full payment.

Meanwhile, the intended use of purchasing a “murder house” has also become a topic of discussion among many people. Many netizens said that in most cases, after a “murder house” is bought, it will be refurbished by the landlord and then rented out, and the tenants do not know the facts.

Regarding this, Gao Chengfei, Deputy Director of the Brand and IP Committee of the Influence Research Institute, believes that under China’s current legal framework, renting out a property while concealing that an abnormal death event occurred in the home (commonly known as a “murder house”), does not directly constitute a criminal offense, but it does cross the red line of civil law.

He said the key point is the duty of information disclosure. According to Article 500 of the Civil Code, during the formation of a contract, the parties have a pre-contract obligation to truthfully inform. A property’s historical information is an important fact that affects the tenant’s decision-making when entering into the contract. Intentionally concealing it constitutes fraud. In judicial practice, courts in multiple places have supported tenants’ claims to rescind the lease contract, refund rent, and seek compensation for losses. For example, court rulings in Beijing, Shanghai, and other places have recognized that murder house information falls within the tenant’s right to know, and concealment violates the principles of public order and good morals.

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