Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by for KE Holdings Inc.'s third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Today's conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Ms. Siting Li, IR director of the company. Please go ahead, Siting.
Thank you, operator. Good evening and good morning, everyone. Welcome to KE Holdings or Beike's third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. The company's financial and operating results were published in the press release earlier today and are posted on the company's IR website, investors.ke.com. On today's call, we have Mr. Stanley Peng, our Co-founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Tao Xu, our Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Peng will provide an overview of our strategies and business developments, and Mr. Xu will provide additional details on the company's financial results. Before we continue, I refer you to our safe harbor statement in our earnings press release, which applies to this call, as we will make forward-looking statements. Please also know that Beike's earnings press release and this conference call include discussions of unaudited GAAP financial information, as well as unaudited non-GAAP financial measures.
Please refer to the company's press release, which contains a reconciliation of the unaudited non-GAAP measures to comparable GAAP measures. Lastly, unless otherwise stated, all figures mentioned during this conference call are in RMB. With that, I will now turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Mr. Stanley Peng. Please go ahead, Stanley.
Thank you, Siting. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining Beike's third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Against the many uncertainties in the real estate market, we achieved a series of breakthroughs in the third quarter. We have supported our stores and agents' network to consistently outperform the market and achieve steady efficiency and profitability improvements in each business line on our platform. This was thanks to the initiatives we implemented beginning last year to enhance efficiencies. I believe ultimately, these achievements stem from the enterprising spirits of the organization, from the perseverance of each one of us on the platform in the face of external challenges. November 12 marked the 21st anniversary of our organization's founding.
To celebrate this momentous occasion, we organized a HomeLinker event witnessed online by over 7,000 HomeLinkers who have stayed with us for more than 10 years, spreading in more than 80 cities across China. HomeLinkers are employees who have been with our organization, share the same experience and collective memories, and have learned the same methodologies. Moreover, they believe in the same values and make similar choices. They shape the resilience of the organization. We are not only practitioners, but also disseminators of our spirits. We carry the same mission and responsibilities to influence more people, cementing their convictions during downtimes and keeping them grounded in the upcycle while always driving for growth, virtue, and positivity. Moving on our progress.
In the third quarter of 2022, in our one body, our existing and new home transaction services, we have prominent advantages in our one-body business, thanks to our years of efforts and investments in the initiatives to enhance efficiency. Now, our one body has entered the development stage, where deepened operations are vital for increments. These strategic measures may look small to outsiders, but only by finding every core areas of inefficiency and working on it every day can we continue making our business better. The store and agent count on our platform have been stabilizing or even growing in some cities. As of the end of the third quarter, the number of connected stores and active stores on our platform reached over 41,300 and 39,700, both about 3% lower quarter-over-quarter.
The number of agents and active stores, active agents on our platform, surpassed 400,000 and 317,000, respectively, with quarter-over-quarter decrease narrowed to 3% and 2%, respectively. The number of active stores grew quarter-over-quarter in nearly 30 cities, including Nanjing, Changsha, and Hefei. The number of active agents increased quarter-over-quarter in 40 cities, including Shenzhen. The competition structure of stores and agents on our platform has been improving. We now have a higher percentage of agents with long track records and higher performance results. The proportion of agents with over three years of industry experience rose by about 10 percentage points in the second quarter compared with the first quarter. Along with the overall improvement in professional qualifications, per- store and per- agent productivity also increased.
In the third quarter, the average store commission income of the Deyou franchise stores and connected stores on our platform grew by 25% year-over-year and 13% quarter-over-quarter. Average commission income per agent rose by 25% year-over-year and 9% quarter-over-quarter. The continued improvement in our new home receivables collection also further ensure the certainty of income for store owners and agents. Our agents are increasing identifying with their profession. This year, we conducted two nationwide market surveys participated by a total of over 80,000 real estate agents on our platform. Survey results show that despite a decline in confidence due to major market corrections, agents have developed a greater pride in their profession, supported by the growing acceptance of their profession by family and society, along with its elevated social status.
In terms of the store agent network and the industry development, efficiency and quality needed to be improved. The productivity of a single agent has not improved much over the years, and the overall income level of agent is low, and their churn rate is high. In the next stage, the industry will shift from the pursuit of scale to high-quality development with an accelerated pace, focusing on efficiency and quality. This will undoubtedly force us to grow more and better abilities from inside. Our existing home transaction services continue to significantly outperform the market.
According to data from the Beike Research, this showed nationwide GTV of existing home sales climbed by about 7% year-over-year in the third quarter, while GTV of existing home transaction on Beike's platform was RMB 449 billion, up 19% year-over-year, of which existing home sales GTV rose by more than 20% year-over-year. The strength was partly due to the release of pent-up demand in the third quarter in Beijing and Shanghai after the pandemic flare-ups in the second quarter. In the meantime, our operational and management initiatives have been paying off, giving the industry's service providers a strong determination to work with us. Our existing home services, including existing home sales and rentals, are becoming increasingly important in terms of both business growth and risk control. We have made efforts on various fronts to accelerate the growth of this business.
For instance, we have been closely watching the proportions of new and existing home in different cities' strategic goals and driving the development of our existing home services. We also allocated more personnel to support the existing home business, fortifying system development, and ecosystem governance. Meanwhile, in many cities where new home sales previously dominated property transactions, local brands and store owners have become keen to make organizational and personnel adjustments to shift to the existing home business. Turning to new home transaction services, according to data from National Bureau of Statistics of China, in the third quarter, the nationwide GTV of new home residential home sales was down 21% year-over-year and 7% quarter-over-quarter. The GTV of CRIC's top 100 real estate companies fell by 33% year-over-year and 0.2% quarter-over-quarter.
Although the year-over-year decline in the new home market narrowed in the third quarter, there was no obvious sequential improvement. The new home market is still in a tough way, weighed down by a range of factors, including, ceased mortgage payments on unfinished projects, pandemic resurgences, and few developer promotions. In the third quarter, GTV on new home sales on our platform was RMB 261.5 billion, down 36% year-over-year and up 17% quarter-over-quarter. While the market remains under pressure, we have constantly improved the health of our business operations across the board, as well as gained further market recognition with our efficient sell-through capabilities and our efforts to build a healthier industry ecosystem. On the consumer side, we mobilized our resources to collect and provide construction progress updates to customers.
Our city-based operations and photographer teams collect accurate, comprehensive project updates on construction progress from multiple site locations monthly for ongoing cooperation projects, and quarterly for other unfinished projects. Updates are provided to customers and agents on our apps. This practice also kept us fully informed on the latest construction progress of different developers. As of November 15, we have covered 32,442 housing projects in this initiative. Operationally, we continue to strengthen our commissioning-advance model. In September, commissioning advance accounted for 34% of our nationwide new home sales commission revenue, 44% for private developers in cities excluding Beijing and Shanghai, and 32% for state and centrally owned developers. On top of the commission in the advancement model, we promoted our strategy of focusing on selected high-quality projects and key new home projects.
On the service side, we collaborate with more high-quality developers and projects. During the quarter, the proportion of new home sales from state and centrally owned developers expanded to 42% from 37% in the second quarter to really accelerate sales through in the current market. Effective lead generation from brokerage channels and promotional conversion from developers must join forces. We are proud to stand out from other brokerage channels with our exceptional existing home transaction service capabilities and add many new home customers, leveraging our existing home customer base. In addition, our continuous undertaking to improve the new home industry ecosystem have helped to reduce the ingrained problems of good industry players being driven out by subpar practitioners. This has further garner the respect and the support of high-quality developers for us.
In the future, I look forward to providing an overall review of the effort we have made to improve the health of the new home ecosystem. Next, moving to our two main businesses. Our full-service home renovation and furnishing business in progressing as planned. In the third quarter, the industry started to recover as pandemic resurgences in Beijing and Shanghai subsided. According to data from the China Building Decoration Association, the revenue of leading home renovation and furnishing companies in the third quarter decreased by 4% year-over-year and increased by 13% quarter-over-quarter. Our home renovation furnishing business continued to outperform the market, rising more than 40% year-over-year and 34% quarter-over-quarter, generating revenue of close to RMB 1.85 billion.
Contracted sales in the third quarter reached close to RMB 2 billion, an increase of more than 60% year-over-year. Among this, the number of our home renovation contract value increased by more than 50% year-over-year, with average order value up by more than 10% year-over-year. The percentage of total contracted value attributable to core business traffic referrals increased from 25% in June to 43% in the third quarter. We have replicated the technological capabilities accumulated in our core business, such as AI assistant, Xiao Bei, into our home renovation and furnishing business. As of October 31, more than 9,500 service providers, including home renovation and furnishing designers, engineers, foremen, as well as agent from our core business, has participated in the Xiao Bei training and testing.
Our home furnishing new retail services accounted for 20% of the total contracted sales in the third quarter, up from 15% in the second quarter. The ratio of home renovation orders that come with need for customized furnishing increased to 1 out of 6 from 1 out of 9 in the second quarter. In the third quarter, Beijing Beiwo Shengdu reached quarterly breakevens and monthly contracted sales of over RMB 100 million in June, July, and August, becoming the largest full-service home renovation brand in Beijing. This is a significant breakthrough and achievement amid the current headwinds. The underlying capabilities we accumulated in the past have propelled the Beijing business into a positive cycle. We did this by first establishing from the ground up large-scale home renovation delivery management capabilities.
Second, our scale and more complete supply chain created a virtual cycle that has won additional suppliers and enabled customers to select from a great choices of better quality products. Third, our proven competencies in delivery management and business operations have become better recognized among service providers. Agents start to actively recommend our home renovation services to customers and accompany them on visits. Whereas designers, workers, and the foremen are proud to join us as they feel confident in their professional development with increased belonging to the platform. Only by attracting and assembling high-quality service providers in the industry can we provide consumers with a superior service experience. With Beijing as an example, we aim to continue to iterate and manifest our capabilities in more cities, bring better living services to more customers.
Next, moving to our home rental services, which continue to expand in scale and improve in efficiency in the third quarter. In terms of scale, as of the end of the third quarter, the number of contracted rental units managed by our rental services doubled quarter-over-quarter to over 85,000. Among them, the number of units under the decentralized leasing management, Carefree Rent, reached over 57 units, an increase of nearly 17% quarter-over-quarter. The Carefree Rent services is currently available in certain cities. To improve our efficiency, we continue to develop and iteratively optimize our sign-up and our occupancy model, as well as refine our operational capabilities. In September, both our occupancy rate and average sales through period improved compared to the second quarter.
It is particularly worth mentioning that this July, we were selected as part of the first group of affordable rental housing operation service enterprises in Chengdu, and we were the only private enterprise among the four selected. Thanks to the opportunity, we were able to become more deeply involved in the improvement and operation of local affordable rental homes. As of November 21st, we have provided high-quality leasing operation services, including leasing brokerage, to more than 1,000 rental homeowners and tenants in Chengdu. In the future, we will also strive to participate in the planning and operation of more affordable rental housing and contribute to the development of a housing system that ensures supply through multiple sources, provides housing support through multiple channels, and encourages both housing purchase and renting.
In conclusion, our business performance this quarter demonstrated great vitality and resilience of our organization. Internally, this is due to the people we have and the organizational culture we have formed. We have an unshakable insistence on technology for good quality service and utmost operational efficiency, which has won us the affirmation of customers and service providers. Externally, it comes from the solid economic foundation of our nation, from the desire of each small family for joyful living, which together have amounted to the tremendous demand in China's living sector. There have been a series of favorable policies unveiled recently to support the future release of rigid and upgrade housing demands, help high-quality developers restore liquidity, and boost market confidence.
We will also do our best to make our network of store and agents the warm connect of homes, to bring better quality and a more diversified housing and related services to customers, and play our part to promote a stable and healthy development of the real estate market, as well as to better satisfy the housing needs of all people. Thank you. Next, I would like to turn the call over to our CFO Tao, to review our third- quarter financials.
Thank you, Stanley, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. Before discussing more details about the third quarter of 2022 financial results, I'd like to provide a brief update on the recent housing market. In the third quarter of this year, policymakers maintained the relatively easy credit conditions, and the local government continued to introduce city-specific measures to better satisfy demand for housing and home upgrades. Overall, however, the frequency and the intensity of supportive policy throughout Q3 weakened compared to Q2, and we also saw some strong relaxation reversed in some several key cities. Meanwhile, a number of factors disrupt China's housing market recovery in Q3. This included heatwaves that ravaged a vast swathe of the country, COVID-19 flare-ups and a slowdown in developers' sales promotions, and the fact that some buyers ceased the mortgage payment on unfinished new home projects.
The existing home market maintained a moderate recovery, with GTV ticking up slightly on a year-over-year basis. The new home market also saw a decrease in GTV contraction, but it still remains soft. Despite the macro headwinds, our operating efficiency and profitability improved significantly in Q3. The profitability of our new home transaction services and the company's gross margin both reached new highs since our IPO in 2020, whereas our DSO and non-GAAP operating expenses fell to record lows since IPO. This result did not come about overnight. They are the result of our rapid and resolute implementation of a series of cost management and efficiency-enhancing measures launched a year ago in the face of market adjustment. They also embody our courage against the setbacks. Our management team's community and involvement in the frontline operations and our decisive will to never give up.
These achievements further motivate us to respect laws of the market, return to the essence of the operation, seek improvement from the refined management, and continue to implement our series of efficiency, risk control, and cost management measures. Against this backdrop, let's turn to our financial details for Q3. Our net revenues were RMB 17.6 billion during the quarter, representing a narrowed year-over-year decline of 2.8% and a 28% increase compared with Q2 2022. This quarter-over-quarter revenue improvement was primarily due to the increased revenue from existing home transactions, as pent-up demand in the mega cities of Beijing and Shanghai translated into the higher sales volume at the beginning of Q3 after a COVID-battered Q2. Meanwhile, other factors also helped drive the total net revenues. This included more new home revenues recognized in Q3 following a jump in subscriptions in May and June.
Our commissioning-advance model that drove faster new home subscriptions to sales conversion, as well as our stable monetization ability. In particular, our net revenue from existing home transaction services increased by 16.6% to RMB 7.2 billion in Q3, compared to RMB 6.1 billion in the same period of 2021. Primarily due to a 18.7% increase in GTV of existing home transactions to RMB 449 billion in Q3, from RMB 378.2 billion in the same period of 2021. Our net revenues from new home transaction services decreased by 31.3% to RMB 7.8 billion in Q3, from RMB 11.3 billion in the same period of 2021.
Primarily due to the decrease of GTV of new home transactions of 36.2% to RMB 261.5 billion in Q3, from RMB 410.1 billion in the same period of 2021. Our net revenue from home renovation and furnishing were RMB 1.8 billion in Q3, compared to RMB 6 million in the same period of 2021, primarily because of the company completed the acquisition of Shengdu Home Renovation Co., Ltd. and it began to consolidate the financial results during the Q2 2022 as organic growth of GTV for the home renovation and furnishing business. Our revenue from emerging and other services increased by 45.8% to RMB 801 million in Q3, from RMB 550 million in the same period of 2021.
Primarily attributable to the increase of net revenue from the rental property management services, which was partially offset by the decrease of net revenue from financial services. Cost of revenues decreased by 16.3% to RMB 12.8 billion in Q3, from RMB 15.3 billion in the same period of 2021. Gross profit increased by 72.8% to RMB 4.8 billion in Q3, from RMB 2.8 billion in the same period of 2021. Gross margin was 27% in Q3, compared to 15.2% in the same period of 2021. The increase in gross margin was primarily due to, A, a shift of revenue mix towards the existing home transaction services, with a higher contribution margin than some of other revenue streams.
B, a higher contribution margin for existing home transaction services led by the increased net revenue from existing home transaction services and the decrease of the fixed compensation cost for Lianjia agents. C, a higher contribution margin for the new home transaction services as a result of an increased number of projects with higher margin. A relatively lower percentage of base compensation cost of net revenue from new home transaction services. D, a relatively lower percentage of cost related to the store and other costs of net revenue in Q3 compared to the same period of 2021. Total operating expenses decreased by 29.9% to RMB 3.5 billion in Q3, from RMB 5.1 billion in the same period of 2021.
General and administrative expenses decreased by 26.4% to RMB 1,777 million in Q3, from RMB 2,412 million in the same period of 2021. Mainly due to the decrease of the provision for the credit losses, along with the decrease accounts receivable balance, personnel costs, and overhead, along with the decreased high comp, as well as the decrease of the conference and the traveling expenses, which was partially offset by an increase of the share-based compensation in Q3 compared to the same period of 2021. Sales and marketing expenses were RMB 1,258 million in Q3, compared to RMB 1,202 million in the same period of 2021.
Mainly due to the increase in the sales, and the marketing expenses for the home renovation and furnishing services as the financial results of Shengdu were consolidated since Q2 2022, which was partially offset by the decrease of the brand advertising and the promotional marketing expenses and the personnel cost for housing transaction services. Research and development expenses decreased by 51.2% to RMB 509 million in Q3, from RMB 1,043 million in the same period of 2021. Mainly due to the decrease of personnel cost and the share-based compensation as a result of the decreased high comp in research and development personnel in Q3 compared to the same period of 2021.
Income from operations was RMB 1.2 billion in Q3, compared to loss from operations of RMB 2.3 billion in the same period of 2021. Operating margin was 6.9% in Q3, compared to -12.7% in the same period of 2021. Primarily due to, one, a relatively higher gross profit margin. Two, the decrease in total operating expenses along with the relatively slight net revenue, primarily due to the personnel severance, and optimize the resource utilization in Q3 compared to the same period of 2021. Excluding non-GAAP items, our adjusted income from operations was RMB 2.1 billion in Q3, compared to adjusted loss from operations of RMB 1.4 billion in the same period of 2021.
Adjusted operating margin was 12% in Q3, compared to the - 7.9% in the same period of 2021. Adjusted EBITDA was RMB 2.3 billion in Q3, compared to the RMB -550 million in the same period of 2021. Net income was RMB 716 million in Q3, compared to net loss of RMB 1,766 million in the same period of 2021. Excluding non-GAAP items, adjusted net income was RMB 1,888 million in Q3, compared to adjusted net loss of RMB 888 million in the same period of 2021.
Net income attributable to KE Holdings Inc.'s ordinary shareholders was RMB 723 million in Q3, compared to net loss attributable to KE Holdings Inc.'s ordinary shareholders of RMB 1,765 million in the same period of 2021. Adjusted net income attributable to KE Holdings Inc.'s ordinary shareholders was RMB 1,895 million in Q3, compared to adjusted net loss attributable to KE Holdings Inc. ordinary shareholders of RMB 887 million in the same period of 2021. Diluted net income per ADS attributable to KE Holdings Inc.'s ordinary shareholders was RMB 0.6 in Q3, compared to diluted net loss per ADS attributable to KE Holdings Inc.'s ordinary shareholders of RMB 1.5 in the same period of 2021.
Adjusted diluted net income per ADS attributable to KE Holdings Inc.'s ordinary shareholders was RMB 1.57 in Q3, compared to adjusted diluted net loss per ADS attributable to KE Holdings Inc.'s ordinary shareholders of RMB 0.75 in the same period of 2021. All in all, our profitability strengthened substantially, and we fully demonstrated our strong execution and operational capabilities. Among these developments, I'd like to address the following financial highlights. First, the profitability and the financial health of our new home business further improved. As we cooperate with a greater number of projects with higher margins and optimize our fixed cost. The contribution margin of the new home transaction services increased to a new high of 24.9% in Q3 since our IPO, up 1.4% from Q2. Meanwhile, our effective risk control strategy helped improve our financial situation.
Cash collection from our new home business totaled RMB 9.27 billion in Q3. That amount surpassed new home revenue for five consecutive quarters. As such, new home DSO shortened by 30 days from Q2 to 78 days in Q3. Apart from the fast collection of the new accounts receivables, we also strove to climb through receivables that were previously recognized by bad provisions. It enables us to write back RMB 195 million in bad debt provision in Q3. Therefore, the bad debt provision did not have negative impact on our PNL during Q3. This reflects the company's principle of adopting the most prudent accounting treatment while highlighting the indispensable value of our new home transaction services in fostering better sales through for the developers and promoting healthy property market circulation.
Second, as we continue to carry out all- around integration between Beike and Shengdu, our home renovation and furniture services achieved a robust growth and start to contribute more revenue to the company in Q3. The business generated revenue of RMB 1.8 billion, up over 40% year-over-year, and 34% from Q2. On an apple-to-apple basis, for Beijing Beiwo, Q3 revenue from the home renovation and furnishing services rose over 90% year-over-year, while the gross margin increased by 8.3 percentage points from the same period of 2021. On that basis, Beijing achieved a city-level operating break-even for the quarter. Beijing's advancement in building out this business model and improvement in financial performance provide a feasible path for us to further explore a larger scale across the country. Third, every penny counts. In Q3, our ongoing optimization of the operating expenses showed results.
It fell 30% year-over-year to RMB 3.5 billion under the GAAP financial measures, driving the recovery of our profitability. Under non-GAAP, our total operating expenses decreased by 35.6% to RMB 2.7 billion, including a bad debt provision written back of RMB 195 million. Fourth, we maintained a strong cash position and operating cash flow in Q3. At end of September, the balance of our cash-like items was RMB 77.2 billion or $10.9 billion. Among which, the combined balance of our cash equivalents, restricted cash, and short-term investment amounted to RMB 57.5 billion, up by RMB 7.5 billion from Q2. The balance of our long-term cash-like items, mainly included in the long-term investment, amounted to RMB 19.7 billion.
Our net operating cash inflow was RMB 2 billion in Q3, remaining positive for the fourth quarter in a row. This outcome demonstrates our strong ability to generate cash. In our view, this makes us well-positioned to navigate the market fluctuation and the future challenges. Fifth, as we previously disclosed, we established a share repurchase program under which company may purchase up to $1 billion of our Class E ordinary shares or ADS over a 12-month period. Since launch of the program on September 1st, we have spent a total amount of around $155 million to purchase approximately 11.75 million ADS into open market as of November 30th. Despite the market fluctuations, we continue with the repurchase program, underscoring our management team's confidence in the company's long-term development prospects and our efficient capital allocation.
Turning to the guidance for the fourth quarter of 2022, we expect total net revenue to be between RMB 14.5 billion and RMB 15 billion in Q4, representing a decrease of approximately 15.7%-18.5% from the same period of 2021. This forecast concedes the potential impact of the recent real estate-related policy and measures, and the COVID-19 resurgence and the containment measures in certain regions, which remains uncertain, as it constitutes the current and the preliminary view on our business situation and the market conditions, which are subject to change.
Last but not least, in the face of market challenges, we respond quickly and actively with exceptional resilience and execution capabilities, as well as fully prove the effectiveness of our operating leverage. Our abundant cash reserves and the healthy cash flow also served as a safety cushion against external uncertainties. Financial security and operational efficiency are capability we have forged in confronting numerous difficulty and challenges, which have enabled our fundamental to remain intact and strengthen our sustainable operation amidst adversities. Our management team has always led by example into the front line, respects every effort and achievement of our service providers, and through it all with pragmatism and honesty. All of us at Beike are making an all-out effort with heart and soul, and never leave anything to chance. Setbacks have translated into courage, and the dangers ahead inspire us to push forward.
As we stand the test of time, not a single step along our journey will be easy, but we will never stop. Keep going, we will keep getting better. That concludes our prepared remarks. We will like now open the call to your questions. Operator, please go ahead.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. For the benefit of all participants on today's call, please limit yourself to one question. If you have additional questions, you can re-enter the queue. If you are going to ask the question in Chinese, please follow with the English translation. The first question comes from Steven Tsai with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. Thank you, management, for taking my questions. My question is on the market outlook. Could you share with us your view on the first quarter outlook for each of the new home and existing home markets? What are the underlying assumptions behind your Q4 revenue guidance? I know it's a bit too early, but could you also share with us your thoughts on the market recovery path next year if we look through the short-term pandemic impact in the quarter? I'm asking this because on one hand, we have seen several supporting policy in the past few weeks, but on the other hand, some of the core cities of our existing home business also have seen some slowdown in sales recovery. While existing home supply seems increasing fast, but price is also trending down.
Just wondering how we should think about recovery path next year. Thank you.
Thank you, Steven. As you talk, let me talk about the third quarter review first. From the macro perspective, the real estate market in this third quarter was affected by multiple factors, including our usual hot summer across country, the pandemic flare-ups in some high-tier cities, and the new home mortgage payment suspension, slowdown in developers' sales promotions, as well as household concerns about the geopolitical tension, economic downturn, and uncertainty for the income expectations. At the same time, the frequency and the magnitude of a supportive policy slowed down in Q3 from both the central and the local government levels. In the second quarter, the central and the local government introduced close to 100 measures and policies to support market recovery. In this Q3, there's only 70. We also saw some strong relaxation reversing in some several key cities.
The reduction of the positive factors and the increase of inhibitive factors both contribute to the recovery slowdown in the housing market in Q3. In terms of the existing home market, despite the macro headwinds in second quarter, the recovery of the existing home market quickened. The GTV for China existing home market increased around 6.6% year-over-year, and 8.1% quarter-over-quarter. The GTV in July recorded year-over-year growth for the first time in past 12 months. Specifically, the existing home market hit a high in July and moderated month-over-month afterwards. This trend is consistent with the monthly trend in the third quarter from 2018 to 2021. City-wise, the fourth- tier cities benefit from the pent-up demand after pandemic restrictions were lifted, resulting in a significant GTV growth quarter-over-quarter.
The performance in the second and third- tier cities was basically flat versus the second quarter. Among them, like city as Jinan and Suzhou, which have more supportive policies, and Zhengzhou, which benefit from the demand shift from the new homes, saw steady improvement in the existing home market in third quarter. Cities such as Chengdu were more affected by the pandemic at the end of Q3. In terms of the new home market, affected by multiple macro factors, the new home market recovery trend in May and June did not extend to the third quarter. Following the mortgage payment suspension incident in July, our leading indicator, the number of new home subscription prompted downed around 42% week-over-week, 26% month-over-month. It continued to drop in August and September.
According to the data from National Bureau of Statistics, third- quarter new residential housing sales fell by 21.3% year-over-year, and 7.1% quarter-over-quarter. CRIC's data on top 100 developers showed a 33% year-over-year drop in the period, and a slight downward trend month-over-month. City-wise, according to Beike Research Institute, during the first nine months of the year, new homes GTV was down merely 2% year-over-year for the first-tier cities, but dropped 46% and 41% for second-tier and third-tier cities, respectively. As of September, regarding the pricings for the 50 key cities, existing home price has fallen for 13 consecutive months and is still showing a downward trend. It further fell 1% in September from August, taking cumulative decline to 9%.
The existing home prices in Beijing and Shanghai hit a new high in Q3, and it began to adjust slightly in October, while in most other cities, the price declined more notably. Cities with more significant home price adjustments are mostly cities that saw large price increase in the past, like Shenzhen and Dongguan. In summary, there were many unexpected factors in the market during the Q3. It will require additional observation to tell how the market will perform. Regarding for the Q4 outlook, since the first quarter, favorable policies have been introduced continuously. On demand side, policies including lowering the mortgage rate, tax refunding, and relax the first home recognition to ease the down payment for the home upgrade amount, have all played a role in promoting market recoveries.
To address the liquidity crisis of developers, several ministry from the central government jointly introduced tools to support the credit, the debt financing of the private developers, including the famous 16 measures from the central bank. The path to credit restoration for developers is getting clear. It has played a role in the restoration of the market confidence. Nevertheless, the ongoing COVID outbreak and the corresponding control measures in many cities still bring great pressure on the market recovery and have a dilutive effect on supportive measures. For existing home market, at present, among our top 32 cities, over 95% of the stores in Beijing, Zhengzhou, Chongqing, and Shijiazhuang are affected and are unable to operate normally due to COVID-19 and the related containment measures.
More than 60% of our stores in Guangzhou are affected, and the pandemic situation in Chengdu, Tianjin, Xi'an, and Suzhou is also intensifying. During the previously severe flare-up in Shanghai, Shenyang, Zhengzhou, and other cities, the transaction volume was close to zero for about four to eight weeks. Therefore, we prudently assume that roughly 25% of our existing home transactions in fourth quarter will be affected by the pandemic. However, unlike the discretionary consumption, housing demands are largely rigid. Based on our experience, the demand will be bounce back and be replenished to a certain extent after pandemic resurgence is over. New home market is more notably driven by the developers' active promotion, easing policies, and the National Day holidays, and is expected to see a narrowed year-over-year decline in Q4.
In October, Beike new home subscription data rose sharply by nearly 35% compared with September. The subscription data usually leads to the online contract signing by about a month. The recovery of the leading indicators supports overall recovery of the new home market in Q4. Despite the private developers might still experience the debt default, relentless efforts are being made in debt relief for the industry in the fourth quarter. Regarding the company's view for the year of 2023, I would like to say the market trend will be affected by multiple factors. It is unlike for the market to weaken further. There is room for the real estate policies to further relax.
Guided by the principle of the housing is for living, not for speculation, maintaining the stable development of the real estate market and supporting the release of the reasonable housing demand have become the consensus among the various entities. Judging from the timing of the end of April, September and November, when central government released the easing measures, the current market downturn may reach the point of the triggering more policy relaxation. Considering the housing prices are still falling, and the transaction volume is still at a trough, we expect to see increased policy support next year, especially from the local government. Whether it is in the form of purchase fund support, or more importantly, further ease the purchase qualification. This will lay the foundation for the demand to return and stabilize the market.
For other micro factors that have relatively large impact on the market recovery, you've seen that, we would like to say, Number one, the global economy and our political landscape does not experience significant turbulence. Number two, there is a moderate economy growth domestically, and the pandemic has been effectively controlled, with its impact on the economy gradually easing. Number three, the urban employment rate is back on track, as well as the pace of urbanization. Number four, the residents' income expectation and the consumer confidence are moderately restored. Lastly, on the policy front, the implementation of the property tax will not be rushed in the short run. Under all of this assumptions above, we expect the performance of the existing home and the new home market as follows for the year of 2023. Strong certainties in recovery of the existing home market.
The existing home market has undergone deep adjustment in the year of 2021 and shows a trend of quarter-over-quarter recovery so far in 2022. In the second half of 2022, most cities might be able to return to the monthly transaction average over the past five years. We expect the existing home market to continue recover and continue to benefit from the spillover demand from the new home market in the year of 2023. According to the forecast from Beike Research Institute, nationwide GTV for existing home sales is expected to stage a mild recovery, rising around 5% year-over-year next year compared with 2022. Regarding new home, it might take longer for the new home market to see a mild recovery.
The recovery of the new home market next year will depend more on the restoration of the consumer confidence in real estate market and the strength of the supportive policies. According to Beike Research Institute, the support of the more relaxed policy, developers, especially those state and the centrally owned, will increase their sales through efforts on the supply side next year, bringing a marginal improvement in transaction volume. However, the consumer confidence and the housing price, which were more deeply wounded by COVID-19 and the delayed new home project, will take longer to recover. The decline in some customer confidence in second half of this year is expected to extend to the first half of next year and begin to repair in the second half of 2023.
As such, we expect the GTV of the new home market to be largely flat- lined year-over-year in the year of 2023. Thank you.
The next question comes from Timothy Zhao with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Thank you, management for taking my question. I have two questions here. First, could management share some outlook on how our Lianjia store and store network expansion plan into next year? What is the operating efficiency and income level of the store and agents at this moment? In the third quarter, we achieved very strong profitability, but does that mean that the income level of the stores and agents is coming down? Secondly, it's related to the SOE versus the private developers breakdown, which is new home sales. As I noticed that private developers do account for over 50% of the new home sales on Beike platform. May I check what are the top customers in the private developers?
Considering that some of the private developers recently also default on bonds or delay the interest payment, are we expecting more risk related to the account receivable? Thank you.
Thank you, Timothy. Regarding your first question, store and agent numbers are stabilizing and even start to grow in some cities. We see stabilizing store and agent network scale. Since the second quarter, the number of active stores and agents have started to stabilize. In the third quarter, the quarter-over-quarter decrease in active stores and agents narrowed to 3% and 2%, respectively. In nearly 30 cities, including Nanjing, Changsha, and Hefei, the number of active store grow quarter-over-quarter, and the number of active agents increased quarter-over-quarter in 40 cities, including Shenzhen. There's no significant network function needed going forward in short run. A large number of practitioners left the industry following the recent round of market corrections. We believe many of them might not return even when the market recovers.
Therefore, looking ahead, we do not expect the rapid growth in the number of stores and agents industry-wide in short to medium term. The number of stores and agents on our platform will also remain relatively stable over coming quarters. The steady improvement in store and agent productivity facilitates organic business growth. We believe increasing per-store and per-agent income is the key to the organic growth. The industry has shifted away from the frenzy of the pure skills function towards the pursuit of the refined high-quality services. Only in such environment can service provider who takes care of customers to stand out from the pack, and to see the improvement in their living conditions. In 2021, the average income of Lianjia agent nationwide was still far below the average local salary. 77% and 63% of average at the median local salary, respectively.
Therefore, while maintaining a relatively stable scale of the store and agent on our platform, we hope to support each high-quality store and agent to grow revenue and the profit, thereby realizing the high quality and sustainable growth for the overall business on our platform. The productivity improvement has delivered results. Overall speaking, we implement a series of strategies, including reforming loss-making stores, merging the large stores, facilitating the business shift from the new homes to existing homes, and focusing on the key new home projects. We insisted on taking care of agent and help agent and store owners transcend the cycle. Although it takes time for our effort to pay off, we have observed the clear recovery in store and agent productivity on our platform.
In the third quarter, while GTV on Beike dropped by 11% and our revenue fell by 3% year-over-year, the unit store commission revenue of our franchised and the connected store on Beike platform grows by 25% and 26% respectively year-over-year, and 14% and 12% respectively, quarter-over-quarter. Meanwhile, commission revenue per agent of connected store rose by 25% year-over-year and 9% quarter-over-quarter. There are structural reasons that partially explain the increase, but overall, store and agent income on Beike platform has been improving. Just take Zhengzhou as a showcase. Due to the market corrections, our revenue in Zhengzhou decreased by 43% in the first three quarters and 23% year-over-year in third quarter. Our operating profit margin in the city rose significantly from last year's average 6% to 24% in the third quarter.
Operating profit grew by 69% for the first three quarters and was 14 times in the third quarter compared with the same period of last year. While we improve the profitability in Zhengzhou as a whole, the connected store in Zhengzhou have also achieved significant improvement in their operational and financial performance. In the third quarter, their unit store commission revenue grew by 57% year-over-year and 14% quarter-over-quarter. Looking for the future, in the year of 2023, assuming market enters a period of steady recovery, we hope to help more agents and stores to reach above the breakeven. Regarding your second question, first, I need to emphasize again that Beike's buyer risk is minimal, mainly for three reasons.
Number one, as Beike continues to increase the cooperation with the state and centrally owned developers, they are accounting for increasingly higher proportion of our new home sales. In third quarter, the proportion of the new home sales from the state and centrally owned developers further expanded by 5% quarter-over-quarter to 42%. Number two, the news coverage on the debt crisis created a so-called halo effect, giving the impression that the majority of the private developers are in a debt crisis. In the real world-A significant number of the local private developer remain crisis free. Contrary to the common perception, these small yet strong developers with low leverage are our important cooperative partners. Meanwhile, Beike does not subject to the concentration risk.
We currently serve more than 1,000 private developers, of which only six who each count for more than 1% of the total sales contribution. The robust health of our local private developer and our low business customer concentration empower Beike to maintain active control of our risk exposure. We continue to increase the coverage of the commissioning-advance model, particularly among the private enterprises. The percentage of the revenue from the commission in the advance model to the total private developer new home revenue in cities excluding Beijing and Shanghai, already exceeded 32% in first three quarters and reached 44% in September. A further deterioration in the operating condition of a single or even multiple private developers will not have a material impact on our accounts receivable collections.
Number three, we are equipped with an industry-leading risk control strategy and a strong bargaining power. We have never slackened in our new home risk control measures, and the new home receivable collection is a core KPI in this year. This year, we continue to strictly manage of DSO, with an emphasis on the detection and prevention of risks in advance, revenue safety, and the settlement of the historical receivables. There are some examples. Upfront risk detection and the prevention, we continue to iterate our developers' risk assessment system to conduct upfront risk detection and classification. We also strictly manage the cooperation with developers in accordance with different risk levels. Contracts with the high-risk developers are completely prohibited, and only with advanced commission payment and the settlement of the historical receivables can such cooperation be resumed.
Safeguard our newly generated revenues, comprehensively expand the scale of the commission in advance payment, and the percentage of the cooperation with the state and the centrally owned developers. We also resolve through the legal remedy as much as possible against the high-risk developers with delinquent accounts to ensure receivable preservation. Conduct corporate- to- corporate cooperation with the low-risk developers to reach the settlement agreement on receivables in arrear to expedite the settlement of historical receivables. As a result of the serious initiatives, in Q3, our new home sales cash inflow reached RMB 9.27 billion, almost 10% higher quarter-over-quarter. While the book value of our new home receivable decreased to RMB 6.15 billion. The receivable collection cycle shortened by 30 days to 78 days in Q3.
In the first three quarters of this year, our cumulative new home transaction revenue reached RMB 20.4 billion, our cumulative cash collection reached RMB 26.4 billion. Our accounting treatment against the bad debt provision has always been prudent, with a maximum provision. For almost all of the developers who had previously generated default risk, as the maximum amount receivable was booked as a bad debt provision. Meanwhile, we are an effective and indispensable channel for developers to generate sales and resume liquidity. We continue to receive the collections from the developers, which were previously recognized bad debt provision. In Q1 and Q3 of this year, we were able to write back provisions for the bad debt in amounts of RMB 150 million and RMB 195 million, respectively.
While our cumulative bad debt provision amounted to almost RMB 2 billion, covering 32% of the new home accounts receivable. We think this is a sufficiently bad debt provision, and there is very little chance for large amount one-time bad debt provision in the future. Given to our highly decentralized business and the implementation of the strict risk control, we believe our new home receivable will continue to become more secure, and our bad debt from the new home sales will not deteriorate materially any further. Thank you.
The next question comes from Liping Zhao with CICC. Please go ahead.
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Since the consolidation of Chengdu in second quarter, the company has achieved many progresses in terms of home renovation and furnishing infrastructure capabilities, and also the enhanced cooperation with transaction business line. Looking ahead, what's your development strategy of this business, and how will you balance the growth and investment of this sector? Thank you.
Okay. Thanks for your question. The home renovation and furnishing industry is relatively capital-intensive, and there's many iteration opportunities. We have outstanding to such industry that requires high standardization and transformation through technology or understanding our. Understanding, first, we must not rush. It took Beike and Lianjia 20 years of development to get to where we are now. It's the same for home renovation and furnishing. We need to look at growth with a time horizon of three years for the business. Its gradual start does not mean it will not reach greater heights in the future. Second, to achieve long-term growth, we should cultivate needed capabilities and resolve the major outstanding issues in the industry. We have observed the following areas in the industry where challengers are needed.
One, there is no online services with great home renovation and furnishing experience provided in China. Two, in terms of production of localized home renovation and furnishing products tailored for the Chinese market, the industry is still relatively weak. Three, the home renovation and furnishing services are not standardized. Four, professional skills of service providers need to be improved. Five, we need to identify possible areas of innovation through structural changes in technology, materials, process, and methods. Facing these industry problems and opportunities, we need to leverage our store agent network to turn traffic and provide more and better products. At the same time, we need to upgrade our capability to capture these opportunities and realize long-term growth.
Therefore, we need to make stay fast and targeted investment in areas that will enable us to provide more products and iterate on capabilities for long-term benefits, instead of making investment to stimulate short-term growth and expand scale without growing our capabilities. That is why we are not going to advertise heavily, but rather invest in service training. For example, our Huaqiao Academy spent months developing courses for home renovation service providers. Our home renovation managers throughout the country all need to take full-time training for three to four days, during which time we will be missing out on revenue. This is an investment we must make. We are not going to use large one-time subsidies to stimulate sales. We will spend on system development, online content, and home renovation product R&D, among others.
We see investment in home renovation products in the industry inadequate. Going forward, we will engage in more refined development and operations to provide targeted products for different user groups, such as products for old neighborhoods and on upscale residential communities. If we do not invest in these areas, it means we have stopped in our tracks without striving for long-term growth. These investments are necessary as they match our vision and expectations for the future. Of course, during our investment, we require our business to manifest its capability in growing from zero to one and fostering a virtuous cycle of quality, efficiency and scale. I n summary, there are ample opportunities in the industry as customers have needs, and we want to meet these demands. As such, we will cultivate our capabilities and harness our resources rationally.
In my view, it does not make sense to make investment in this industry for mere financial gains or short-term revenue growth. Our investment needs to drive greater development over a long time frame. That's my answer to your question. Thank you.
We are now approaching the end of the conference call. I would now like to turn the call over to your speaker host today, Ms. Siting Li, for closing remarks.
Thank you once again for joining us today. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact Beike's investor relations team through the contact information provided on our website. This concludes today's call, and we look forward to speaking with you again next quarter. Thank you and goodbye.
Thank you. The conference has ended. You may now disconnect your line.