Text: Fang Hujun
Last week, after we disclosed the news of the withdrawal of Q-fang.com from Shanghai, some fans left a message in the background saying, is the industry depressed, is there no chance?
These two days to see Wang Boming's interview with Huang Qifan about real estate. Huang Qifan said that the emergence of real estate problems last year is the inevitable result of the outbreak of real estate demand in the past thirty years, the operation of high debt of developers and other special situations, real estate is still the pillar industry of the national economy, after experiencing this pain, real estate will enter a balanced new normal of low debt and structural development.
This adjustment of the real estate industry is not the first experience for real estate brokerage companies. Historically, the pain of the real estate brokerage industry has occurred twice: in 2008, during the financial crisis, China's commercial housing fell across the board, and second-hand housing brokerage companies closed stores for the first time; in 2014, real estate transactions were sluggish, and real estate brokerage companies experienced a second crisis.
The two industry pains did not crush the real estate brokerage industry, but it did bring about a turning point in the industry.
In 2008, with the contraction of some Hong Kong-funded and foreign-funded real estate brokerage companies such as Zhongyuan, local brands in the mainland began to rise, and Hong Kong-funded and foreign-funded brokerage brands gradually withdrew from the mainstream market; in 2014, the traffic port platforms such as soufang increased prices against the market, and the real estate brokerage industry collectively boycotted the price increases of the port platform, and the intermediary bosses were determined to cut off their dependence on port traffic, which promoted the Internetization of real estate brokerage companies and the emergence of some emerging real estate Internet platforms.
Right now, there is no doubt that the real estate brokerage industry will undergo a third major revolution. On the eve of this change, what would it be like to predict this turning point in the real estate brokerage industry in advance?
We throw out the following points, welcome to explore.
1, developers become "black iron", real estate brokers into "gold"
Not long ago, Vanke put forward the "black iron era" theory of developers to imply that in the future, developers should tighten their belts to live a life.
Vanke is not crying miserably, the current developers are really miserable. On the one hand, financial institutions are locked from the source of funds, on the other hand, since the second half of last year, the volume of real estate transactions has declined rapidly, developers can not collect housing payments, and funds are blocked at both ends, which makes developers accustomed to playing high-leverage financial means unable to play.
Some people say that the fire at the city gate has affected the pond fish. If the developer is no longer working, does that mean that the real estate agency will also fail?
No! The brokerage industry has ushered in new market opportunities.
New home marketing and second-hand housing brokerage companies are two unrelated types of work. In the past, second-hand housing brokerage stores were small, the status of brokers was not high, and "tall" developers did not look at brokerage companies at all. The developer's new house sales, will be handed over to the special new house agency company, such as Easy House, World Union, etc., in the era of buying a new house basically by grabbing, the new house agency company can completely sell the developer's house, and even, because the new house is too easy to sell, the new house agency company does not have enough bargaining chips with the developer, resulting in a lot of gray transactions.
With the rise of the stock housing market, second-hand housing stores have expanded rapidly, and second-hand housing brokers have gained more and more customers due to the accumulation of time. The traditional new housing agency can no longer easily help developers sell houses, developers began to set their sights on real estate brokerage companies with customers, and gradually tested the waters of "one-hand and second-hand linkage to sell houses".
Now, new housing agencies have basically withdrawn from the stage of developer marketing, and second-hand housing brokerage companies have played an increasingly important role in new home sales. In 2021, the total sales of commercial housing in the country will be 18 trillion yuan, and the sales volume of brokers is expected to account for more than half of the total sales of commercial housing in the country.
In fact, real estate brokerage companies do not focus on the sale of new homes as their main task. Historically, real estate brokerage companies have gradually received attention from developers, not on the intention of real estate brokerage companies, but as a natural result of their own development.
These actions and data show that in the cooperation between real estate brokerage channels and developers, the dependence of brokerage companies on developers has begun to weaken, and they have more initiative to choose cooperation with developers.
On the surface, in the cooperation of new housing channels, the voice of real estate brokerage companies is improving, and the fundamental reason is that the new housing market is shifting from a developer-centered seller's market to a buyer's market with buyers as the core.
Huang Qifan said in an interview that the total amount of newly built commercial housing in China reached a peak of 1.7 billion square meters in 2017, and then began to stop growing, but by 2021, there are nearly 600 million square meters of houses built by Chinese real estate developers that have not been sold for more than a year, which means that there is a backlog of inventory in the commercial housing market, which will cause the demand for new houses to shrink.
When, on the whole, the house produced by the developer is no longer a scarce commodity in the market, the buyer has more choice. All along, the real estate brokerage group that focuses on serving buyers and representing the core interests of buyers will naturally begin to usher in their own "golden age" together with buyers.
2. Stock housing market: service promotes commission increase
The new housing market is like this, what about the stock housing?
In 2020, the total amount of second-hand housing transactions in the country will be 7.4 trillion yuan; in 2021, the total amount of second-hand housing transactions in the country will decline, about 7 trillion yuan. Compared with the transaction volume of 18 trillion yuan of new houses, the transaction volume of existing houses is less than one-half of that of new houses, but this proportion is rising year by year.
In addition, there are two directions that deserve the attention of the industry.
First, according to relevant statistics, the total assets of real estate stock in 2020 are 375 trillion yuan, the transaction volume of second-hand housing is 7.4 trillion yuan, and the overall circulation rate (turnover rate) of second-hand housing is 1.97%. The data for 2021 has not yet been released, and according to the estimation of the decline in the transaction volume of second-hand houses last year, the overall circulation rate (turnover rate) of second-hand houses this year is lower than that of 2020.
The turnover rate of existing houses determines the transaction situation of existing houses, and the higher the turnover rate, the more frequent transactions are, which means that the market space of real estate agents is larger.
From a global perspective, the domestic stock housing turnover rate is still at a low level, far below the average of 5% in other countries. Among them, the turnover rate of existing houses in the United States has reached about 7%.
Hu Jinghui, an industry insider, once wrote an article speculating that due to the gradual landing of real estate taxes, the stock of housing for sale and rental on the market will increase, and under the principle of not increasing the overall tax burden, the holding link should increase the tax while the transaction link should be reduced accordingly. With the increase in housing listings, the increase in customer sources, and the tax reduction in the transaction link, the overall circulation rate of second-hand houses will increase, and the transaction volume of second-hand houses will inevitably increase significantly. Hu Jinghui estimates that the volume of second-hand housing transactions is likely to quadruple.
Second, compared with other countries, the overall commission on real estate transactions is still low.
The debate over the level of commissions for second-hand homes has never stopped. Due to the relatively late development of real estate brokerage services in mainland China, the early development was not standardized, resulting in the public's bias against the collection of commission ratios.
At present, the world's second-hand housing commissions are divided into several grades: the united states, japan, Taiwan's rates reach 6%, which belongs to high-rate countries or regions; Argentina 5%, Germany 4%, Canada 3%, belongs to the middle-rate countries; the United Kingdom and Australia 2%, Hong Kong 2%, Chinese mainland average less than 2%, belongs to low-rate countries or regions.
From the perspective of the world, the commission rate on the mainland is not high, and it is relatively low. The illusion of excessive commission perception in the Chinese market lies in the deviation of commission and service quality. In other words, the improvement of service quality will have a positive effect on the commission rate.
In first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shenzhen, none of the brokerage companies with the highest market share mainly focus on low commissions. In Beijing's real estate brokerage market, there are hundreds of real estate brokerage companies, and the top five companies in terms of market share, such as Chain Home, I Love My Home, Wheat Field, Golden Sunshine, and 21st Century Real Estate, occupy more than 80% of the second-hand housing market in Beijing, and are recognized by the market as quality-oriented intermediary enterprises.
In the fair and open competition market of real estate brokers, the vote of buyers fully shows that low commissions are not the core of buyers choosing a real estate brokerage company.
In other words, the commission is not the decisive factor in determining the survival of the real estate agent, and the service that matches the commission is.
Therefore, if the service level of the industry improves, there is still room for improvement in the overall commission level of the industry. The impact of the turnover rate of the superimposed stock house means that the market size of the second-hand house brokerage will further expand.
3, the next big opportunity for real estate agents - home improvement
Although for the real estate brokerage industry, whether it is a new house or a second-hand house, there will be a new opportunity for profit, it is undeniable that with the change of real estate supply and demand and the adjustment of population structure, the increase in overall market demand will have an inflection point.
In front of large real estate brokerage companies and platforms, how to use their own advantages, broaden their boundaries, lay out new opportunities in advance, and let themselves go further.
Where will the next opportunity in the real estate industry chain be born?
The answer is: home improvement.
The home improvement industry has always been a very strange market. On the one hand, the scale of the industry is very large, and it is the closest market to real estate transactions, with a market size of nearly 4 trillion yuan a year. On the other hand, although all kinds of capital are infiltrating into this market, from the C-end, almost all consumers are still not satisfied with their home improvement companies; on the B side, there is still no large-scale home improvement company on the market, the industry is extremely fragmented, and the annual turnover of Guangtian Group, the largest listed company in the home improvement industry, is only 10 billion yuan, and the market share is less than three thousandths.
There are several reasons for this. On the one hand, the chain of home improvement is too long, each chain is a professional field, it is difficult to form a standardized process, and each non-standardized chain may have problems causing consumer satisfaction to decline; in addition, practitioners, especially front-line workers, are relatively uneducated and difficult to standardize management.
Judging from these pain points, isn't this exactly the problem encountered by the intermediary industry more than two decades ago? When the intermediary industry first started, the industry was extremely fragmented and mixed, there was no standardized service, and consumers complained. Under the leadership of the leading enterprises such as Chain Home and I Love My Home, these problems that were once recognized as unsolvable are no longer problems.
So, is it possible to solve the problem of real estate agencies, and the intermediary will solve the current problems of the home improvement industry.
First of all, from the customer acquisition, real estate agents belong to the upstream of the home improvement industry, have natural advantages, and have the trust endorsement of real estate transactions, and have stronger stickiness to customers. With the increase in the cost of Internet traffic, the current decoration company's accurate customer acquisition cost has reached nearly 1,000 yuan, and the real estate brokerage company can reduce this cost to the best.
Secondly, in the standardization of non-standard services, after 20 or 30 years of exploration, the intermediary company has mature experience, and successfully made the complex process of real estate transactions informational, standardized, transparent and quality, so that users are more and more satisfied. Copying the experience of the intermediary industry and reconstructing the home improvement industry with informatization, standardization and transparency, real estate brokerage companies have an unparalleled experience advantage. At present, this piece of shell is relatively advanced.
4, the company that keeps the store has more opportunities to overtake
Last year, especially in the second half of last year, as real estate policies tightened, the market began to fall into a period of freezing. At present, for many real estate agents, it is how to carry through this winter before seizing new opportunities.
Shi Yongqing, chairman of Zhongyuan Group, said when talking about why Zhongyuan Real Estate began to lag behind competitors in 2009, because Zhongyuan made a wrong judgment on the persistence of the financial crisis in 2008 and carried out store layoffs, at this time, competitors have completed the expansion of the contrarian trend ahead of schedule. After the mainland real estate market recovered due to economic stimulus policies in 2009, Zhongyuan missed the opportunity due to the long time it took to reopen stores and recruit brokers.
Stores are not only the workplaces of real estate brokerage companies, but also the source of traffic. From the site selection to the opening of a store, the short period of several months, the long is calculated in years, not to mention the opening to the performance of the need for a short "store maintenance" time. Once the store is closed, it means that the intermediary cannot start over in the area for a short time.
Therefore, in a contrarian environment, whether it can temporarily sacrifice financial indicators such as profits to protect the store is an important indicator of whether the vitality of a brokerage brand is tenacious, determining whether the company can get opportunities in advance when the market restarts. The difficult decision to close the store or keep the store tests the judgment ability of business leaders to judge the market.
In 2021, some brand brokerage companies, including Q houses, have been overwhelmed and have adopted the method of closing stores or even retreating throughout the city to alleviate the financial pressure caused by store costs, and these brokerage companies have taken short-term hedging to ensure corporate profits, and of course, they have also given up the opportunity to quickly restart after the market warms up.
But in terms of staying in stores or closing stores, industry players have also diverged in their choices, which seemed familiar in 2008. This means that after this round of change, the gap between brokerage firms in the future is likely to widen.
