BEKE vs COMP: Which Is the Better Buy in 2026?

Same yardstick, side by side (as of August 2026). Valuation lined up like this is most meaningful for two names in the same corner of the market, which these are. Figures are approximate; verify before investing.

The metrics above tell you which is the marginally better business. The bigger risk for most people is not picking the slightly worse stock, it is over-concentrating. BEKE and COMP share themes, so owning both, or adding either to what you already hold, can quietly push a large share of your portfolio into one bet.

This is the part a generic comparison page cannot answer, because it depends on what you own. Connect your brokerage and Walnut shows your real, combined BEKE and COMP exposure, flags overlap with your existing positions, and tells you if adding one would tip you past a concentration you are comfortable with, read-only by default, with your login staying at your broker. Walnut is not an investment adviser.

KE Holdings Inc. runs Beike, an integrated online and offline platform for housing transactions and services in China. The core of it is the Agent Cooperation Network, a rule set and commission-splitting system that lets agents from different stores and different brands work the same listing and share the fee. Beike supplies the listing database (the "housing dictionary"), the software, the training and the settlement layer; the stores are a mix of company-owned Lianjia branches and franchised brands such as Deyou. At the end of the first quarter of 2026 the network counted ~60,383 stores and ~453,438 active agents. Revenue is reported in five lines: existing home transaction services, new home transaction services, home renovation and furnishing, home rental services, and emerging and other services.

Full BEKE guide

Compass, Inc. is a tech-enabled residential real estate company that operates an owned-brokerage model in the United States. It recruits real estate agents onto a proprietary software platform that handles marketing, client management, and transaction workflow, and it earns revenue primarily as a share of the sales commissions its agents generate when homes change hands. Because agents keep most of each commission under negotiated splits, Compass keeps only a thin slice of a very large revenue number, so its margins are structurally low and its results track the volume of home sales closely. The company has expanded into adjacent services such as title, escrow, and mortgage referrals to capture more of each transaction.

Full COMP guide

Both fit overlapping themes, but they are not interchangeable. The useful comparison is which set of drivers and risks you want exposure to.

• BEKE drivers: Existing-home share gains against a falling new-home market; Margin repair through cost discipline.
• COMP drivers: Scale and market leadership; Improving profitability.

A faster-growing, richer-valued name usually swings harder, so it suits a longer horizon and a higher tolerance for volatility; a steadier, more cash-generative business suits a more conservative or income-minded investor. The honest test is which set of risks you could hold through a drawdown: The dominant risk is that China's property market keeps contracting: BEKE's revenue is a take rate applied to transaction volume, and volume has now fallen for several consecutive years. For COMP, compass is highly exposed to the housing cycle: when mortgage rates rise or home sales slow, commission revenue falls quickly while many costs remain.

Growth-minded investors who believe the theme has years to run tend to accept the richer multiple for more upside; value-minded investors lean toward the cheaper forward earnings and steadier profile. Pick BEKE if you believe its drivers more; COMP if you believe its. Many investors hold both, but since they share themes, that is a concentrated bet, not diversification. Decide deliberately and check overlap. For the full detail, see the BEKE and COMP guides.

BEKE. The gap between the ~40x trailing multiple and the ~17x forward multiple is the whole valuation debate in one number: trailing earnings were depressed by 2025 margin compression, and the forward figure assumes the margin repair visible in the first quarter of 2026 persists. Net of roughly US$7.8 billion in cash and short-term investments, the operating business is being valued at closer to ~$12 billion against a business still generating around US$13 billion of annual revenue. Figures are reported in renminbi and converted at prevailing rates, so USD comparisons across periods carry a currency effect.

COMP. A residential brokerage like Compass reports a very large revenue number, but most of each commission is paid out to agents, so the figure to watch is adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow rather than top-line growth alone. The business is highly cyclical: transaction volume, and therefore revenue, swings with mortgage rates and home-sale activity, so a strong or weak quarter often reflects the housing market more than company-specific execution. Because margins are thin and GAAP results can flip between small profits and losses depending on stock-based compensation and merger costs, investors typically look at agent count, market share, EBITDA margin trend, and cash generation across a full cycle.

Headline figures (approximate, August 2026): BEKE shows market cap ~$19.5B, revenue (ttm) ~$13.1B (FY2025: ~RMB 94.6B), net income (ttm) ~$492M, q1 2026 net revenues ~RMB 18.9B, down ~19.0% YoY; COMP shows revenue (fy2025) ~$6.96 billion (+23.7% YoY), principal agents ~21,000 (+~19% YoY), market share (q3 2025) ~5.6% (pre-Anywhere), adjusted ebitda (fy2025) ~$293 million (~4.2% margin).

BEKE and COMP are related but distinct: same themes, different businesses and risks. Neither wins in the abstract; the right pick is whichever thesis you actually believe, sized so you are not over-concentrated in one theme. Walnut can show your combined BEKE and COMP exposure against your real portfolio. It is not an investment adviser.