(Yicai) July 31 -- Ke Holdings won the bidding for two pieces of land in China's Xi'an, the first time the leading Chinese real estate agent acquired land after previously participating in auctions in Beijing and Guangzhou.

The two land plots in Weiyang district were bought for around CNY134 million (USD18.5 million) by Jiajiazhihe Property, in which Beihaojia, a housing development service platform under Ke's unit Beiyi Venture Capital Fund Management, holds a 95 percent stake, yesterday.

The parcels' starting prices were CNY36 million and CNY97.8 million (USD5 million and USD13.5 million), respectively. The transaction marks Ke's entrance into the real estate market, with the Beijing-based company starting to try to buy land at the beginning of this year.

"Beihaojia is in early exploration, focusing on cooperation opportunities in China's first- and major second-tier cities," Ke noted.

Ke has set up four businesses: agency, home improvement, renting, and Beihaojia. Its Vice Chairman Xu Wangang serves as chief executive of Beihaojia, which mainly makes financial investments in some real estate projects.

Traditional developers often pay more attention to land acquisition, project construction, and sales, Ke pointed out previously. However, Beihaojia uses big data analysis and artificial intelligence algorithms to uncover customer needs, predicting suitable products for and price expectations of target customers, taking them as references for product positioning and exploring a new model of "consumer-based property development, with housing-based land choice and pricing," it added.

Ke's swung into the black with a profit of CNY5.9 billion (USD810 million) last year compared with a loss of CNY1.4 billion a year earlier, according to its latest financial data. Its revenue jumped 28 percent to CNY77.8 billion (CNY10.7 billion).

Editor: Martin Kadiev