"I was hesitant to sell the car, a peer sold his House in Huizhou at a discount last month, and at this point, there is no way for you to sell it."
A dozen days ago, Lin Jinfeng resigned from a real estate agency store in the Hongshan area. He joined the store at the end of last year and hasn't sold a single house so far, except for the first three months of salary, and has barely made any money in recent months.
One afternoon in July, Lin Jinfeng braved the rain to walk into the cold drink shop we met at Shenzhen North Railway Station. Before meeting me, he talked to a colleague for nearly two hours, and the two of them pondered the next way out, thinking about everything they could start with, and did not talk about why.
Among the old colleagues That Lin Jinfeng is familiar with, in order to make a living, some of them started Didi a few months ago, or did driving as a substitute driver, starting out as part-time, and doing it became full-time.
Lin Jinfeng also has the heart to completely leave the real estate sales industry, "this market can not see a little hope."
Watching
Lin Jinfeng worked as a real estate agent in Shenzhen for five or six years, sold new houses in the Shenzhen area for the first three or four years, partnered with several friends at the end of 2019, opened a real estate intermediary company in Pingshan, opened soon after catching up with the epidemic, and closed the door in a hurry for half a year.
At the end of last year, Lin Jinfeng joined the newly opened real estate intermediary store in Hongshan, which is located in the street frontage shop area of Mintang Road. When he first joined, there were 4 real estate stores in the front 150-meter frontage shop, which accommodated no less than 100 real estate agents. Today, two of the four stores have closed, and Lin Jinfeng's store originally had more than 30 people, "all of whom have been in Shenzhen for many years", and now there are only 3 staff left.
According to lin Jinfeng's understanding, since the release of the second-hand housing guidance price in February this year, these 4 intermediary stores have not sold a single house.
When Lin Jinfeng chatted with peers, he found that various real estate intermediary companies are also trying to reduce costs, many companies have cancelled the basic salary of sales, and even the utility bills of stores have set a ceiling, and the monthly excess of the quota is no longer reimbursed by the company.
Chen Lin sold a second-hand house in this real estate store in Luohu Dongxiao Area for 6 years, which is a large number of customer resources. It also makes it difficult for him to make up his mind to leave the industry completely, "you say bad, from time to time there are always a few customers who come to ask you about the house, you say well, you don't know when they will start", last month, he opened the only order after the release of the guide price.
From February to now, Chen Lin's average monthly income is 6,500 yuan, compared with 25,000 yuan last year.
After so many years in the industry, Chen Lin has recently been a little unsure of the customer's mind, the buyer's purchase decision period has become unpredictable in this half year, and some people are looking at the house before the release of the second-hand housing guidance price, and have been seeing the meaning of not starting now.
Chen Lin, as well as several other real estate agents I contacted, are stating a reality - after the release of the shenzhen second-hand housing guidance price in February, the second-hand housing market shifted from the seller's market to the buyer's market, "in the past, a house may be robbed by several people, and now several houses are competing for a buyer."
Zhou Xiaohong, who is doing second-hand housing sales in the Longhua Minzhi area, still remembers the "grand situation" when the property market was hot, "There are 3 reception rooms in the store, there are 3 buyers sitting, and our colleagues said to the seller, 'You pick one at random'."
And now, the buyer is "not in a hurry", "one area after reading, and then looking at another area, there is no need to worry about the situation that today is not started, tomorrow can not buy." Zhou Xiaohong and Chen Lin found that in the past two months, as the policy has gradually been digested, the number of buyers who have seen houses has begun to increase, but the vast majority are still in a wait-and-see state.
Chen Lin's Dongxiao area belongs to the old town of Luohu, "there are many houses of two or three million, and there are tens of millions." In his view, the buyers who choose the old area of Luohu are the vast majority of pure just-needed people with average income, "the down payment basically has to empty 6 wallets", and the cash flow and repayment ability of this part of the group are far less than the Internet and financial industry practitioners in Futian and Nanshan, and the cycle of decision-making and preparation will be longer.
In previous years, Chen Lin was responsible for the precinct, and the sales cycle of a set of second-hand houses was 3 to 6 months, and now it has been extended to 6 months to 1 year, "only if the same type of listing price is lower than that, someone buys, and what can be sold in these months is the bamboo shoot plate."
Image credit | ShenzhenWeekly. Photography | Summer.
Zhou Xiaohong is responsible for several high-end real estate projects in the Meilinguan area, with a market price of about 10 million. Fu Chong, who does real estate sales in The Shixia area of Futian, handles the market price of second-hand houses of more than 6 million to 10 million, and most of the buyers are financial practitioners and businessmen.
According to the observation of Zhou Xiaohong and Fu Chong, the second-hand housing market in the two areas has a certain similarity, in previous years, after a house was listed, it could be sold in about 1 month, and now the sales cycle has been extended to 3 to 6 months.
However, the sales results of the two in the past six months are also unsatisfactory. Zhou Xiaohong did the store head this year, more than 20 sales in the store, in July has not been able to deal a set of real estate, "every month the store can sell one or two houses is already good." Fu Chong has only sold one house since the second-hand housing guidance price was announced.
What affects buyers' trading decisions and cycles is not only the current state of the market, but also the changes in loans after the guidance price is announced. At present, all bank mortgages are implemented in accordance with the guidance price, the actual amount of loans from banks is reduced, "30% of the down payment, you have to prepare a 50% down payment, the original 50% is now 70%", second-hand house buyers need longer time to raise enough down payment funds.
Chen Lin has contacted many customers who just need it, has about 1 million cash in hand, and originally had the ability to buy 3 million properties, "in Luohu, you can also buy small two rooms." After the guidance price was announced, this part of the customer can only buy a property with a market price of 2 million, "do not buy no house, buy, and feel too small to live", most people can only "passively" wait and see, until there is more money in hand.
In the past six months, Lin Jinfeng and colleagues have also received some investors. A customer in the northeast, a few years ago in Lin Jinfeng's hands to buy two properties, a few months ago, Lin Jinfeng took him to see the Shenzhen North apartment project "North Station No. 1", the customer originally planned to return to the northeast, pour out cash flow and start. Unexpectedly, the customer returned to the northeast, "think about the market situation, or forget it."
Lin Jinfeng's colleague, in April, contacted a buyer who was ready to start a luxury house in Nanshan, a customer with a lot of wealth, showed good strength in the inspection of the house, "there were many zeros on the account", when bitcoin soared, this customer was "very arrogant, shouting to buy a house with bitcoin". However, after the 519 bitcoin plunged, the customer lost news.
Have house prices risen or fallen?
Chen Lin remembered that in the stage when the guide price was just released, there were indeed very few houses sold at the guide price on the market, "that is all investors selling", they are either in the sensitivity to the market, or in the consideration of the capital chain.
But soon, the seller calmed down, "now it is impossible to meet the seller of the guide price listed." Judging from the second-hand houses sold in recent months, the average transaction price of these residences in the old town of Luohu has dropped slightly compared with the peak of last year. However, the market price is more than 10,000 higher than the guidance price.
Image credit | ShenzhenWeekly. Photography | Vennphang.
Among the customers zhou Xiaohong and Fu Chong contacted, the sellers who were eager to sell were willing to reduce the price space by 5%-10%, and even if the sellers who could afford it, there was also 2%-3% bargaining space. Zhou Xiaohong learned that a second-hand house with a total price of more than 10 million yuan was finally sold at a price of 1 million.
In terms of the price that has been traded, the market price of the high-end residential buildings in Shixia Area and Meilinguan is more than 20,000 higher than the guide price. House prices are still rising "very slowly".
In Zhou Xiaohong's view, degree still means "gold content", and in the Lemong Shui Xie Spring Community in longhua area, some residences are classified into the school district of Deep High North, and some are divided into the school district of another school. Due to school district differences, the market price of second-hand houses in the same community varies by 30,000 to 40,000 per square meter.
However, Zhou Xiaohong and Fu Chong found that the investment needs of the home-buying group are decreasing year by year, "there is already a house to live in, and there are fewer people who have to buy another set."
With the gradual tightening of the policy, people continue to be screened out by the market, after the release of the 715 policy in 2020, a large number of people who do not have the qualifications to buy a house are squeezed out of the market, and after the february guidance price is announced, "those who have the qualification to buy a house, who originally had enough down payment, are now not enough for the down payment." After squeezing out again and again, most of the house inspectors are just in need of changing houses, or preparing to get married, and their children are enrolled in school.
In Chen Lin's view, the continuous weakening of speculation in the second-hand housing market is also one of the factors affecting the transaction volume. "Buying a house in Shenzhen, investment, self-occupation, change of house, for the sake of children to go to school, to put it bluntly, more or less with a certain speculative mentality, all believe that this is a steady profit and no loss", and the current and even future market situation, at least for the house changer, will not be as easy as before.
Over the years, Chen Lin has experienced several market fluctuations. A policy down, a few months of market cooling, income bottoming dilemma he has carried over, "less than 3 months, up to half a year", after which the second-hand housing market will quickly pick up and even usher in a wave of climax.
And this time, half a year later, Chen Lin could not see a trace of recovery. The situation he saw was not much different from Lin Jinfeng, "Many stores can't trade a single order a month, or even a single transaction in the past six months, so many stores are closed."
As before, the company also advertised the good news of a certain sales in a certain store every three to five minutes. After so many years of sales, Chen Lin knew that this was just a routine brainwashing operation, and it did not help much in the status quo. In his judgment, the trading volume of more than 5,000 sets of all over Shenzhen in a month is probably the norm in the future, and even most of the time it will not reach this number.
According to public data, from March to June 2021, the number of second-hand residential online signatures in Shenzhen was 4869 units, 4396 units, 3781 units and 3216 units, respectively. In June 2020, Shenzhen's second-hand residential transactions were 11,415 units, extending the time to the whole year of 2020, and the average monthly transaction volume of second-hand houses last year was 10,000 units.
According to the information released by the Shenzhen Real Estate Intermediaries Association, as of June 30 this year, there were 45,458 real estate intermediary employees registered in the city. According to this calculation, the average transaction of second-hand residential buildings in Shenzhen real estate agents in June was about 0.07 units.
If you don't sell your house, where is the way out?
After resigning from the store, Lin Jinfeng returned to his hometown in Henan to take a free ride with a Shaanxi colleague who returned to his hometown with the purpose of selling the car. This colleague in his hometown in Shaanxi Province, has partnered with his family to open 4 physical stores, since the epidemic, four stores have been closed, and he has also carried a lot of debts.
Lin Jinfeng moved his mind to sell the car, also because of debt. When he partnered with a friend to open an intermediary company two years ago, he borrowed a lot of money from the lending platform, and he still has more than 200,000 loans to repay.
A recruitment poster posted in an intermediary store in Longhua has faded.
According to his observation, among his peers and friends, there are not a few who are in debt like him, ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of millions. Or advanced consumption, or blind investment losses, or car loans, housing loans. With zero income in recent months, everyone has spent all their savings and have to consider selling their cars or homes.
The peer who sold the Huizhou real estate, in order to sell as soon as possible, the price was extremely favorable, and the transaction was completed in one month, and the mortgage loan repaid in recent years was all lost.
Lin Jinfeng's wife and two children have been living in rural Henan and have very little daily expenses, which makes his family much less stressful. He has a colleague, the child is 8 months, the wife has not gone out to work, the mother-in-law is also in Shenzhen to take care of the child, the family is calculated, the monthly expenditure is at least 15,000. Not long ago, this colleague sent his wife, children and elderly people back to his hometown.
Chen Lin's head of the family pressure is also similar, his daughter is only more than one year old, his wife has to go to work, his mother helps to take care of it in Shenzhen, the monthly car loan, mortgage to pay back almost 10,000, plus rent and daily expenses, a month tight baba also has to be 14,000.
Among the colleagues around Chen Lin, most of the graduates who have left the real estate sales industry in recent months are graduates who have entered the industry for one or two years, which is the lowest cost of changing careers, "there is no customer resource, there is nothing to be nostalgic about this line, and the basic salary of one or two thousand per month cannot be sustained at all."
Some of the people who left found jobs in the office building, some did sales in other industries, and some returned to their hometowns.
He speculated that the next wave of people who left the industry would be people who had been in the industry for about 3 years. "The longer you enter the industry, the more difficult it is to leave", Chen Lin chatted with friends who also did real estate sales for 6 or 7 years, and often mentioned this sentence. Everyone's situation is similar, the hands have accumulated a certain amount of customer resources, there are always a few customers who let him hold a little hope, can not make up their minds to leave.
Many colleagues who have not resigned have sold jewelry, cosmetics, etc. in the circle of friends. Leaving to do this, everyone has no bottom in their hearts, "Shenzhen's old real estate knows that we are basically in the real estate, insurance, loan three industries reincarnation."
Chen Lin majored in computer science at university, and many of his classmates are now engaged in the Internet industry, and their income is quite considerable. But 7 years after graduation, he knew that the knowledge he had learned in college had long become an old thing, and it was impossible to regain his major. Jumping out of the real estate sales line to find another way out, everyone feels that "it is difficult to have no skill".
Chen Lin set a deadline for himself at the end of the year, and if the market does not improve, he will apply to the company to be a store manager. The management takes a fixed salary and calculates that there are tens of thousands of blocks of income per month, although it is not high, it is "better than selling a house in such a market.".
Zhou Xiaohong is now a store manager, and he has been unable to sleep for several nights recently. The company implements a last-place elimination system, and once the performance of the store he is responsible for cannot be fought by others, it will be "killed". In order to sell performance, he and his colleagues began to visit old customers, knowing that the other party bought a house, and there was no qualification to buy a house, "only to ask people whether to buy an apartment."
The deadline that Zhou Xiaohong set for himself is also the end of the year, and if the market does not improve, he plans to go to Foshan and open a real estate agency store with a friend.
In contrast, Lin Jinfeng seems to have made up his mind to leave this line. In recent days, he has been talking to his peer friends about the future, most of whom feel that the environment is difficult to change, "If it is in previous years, you can change another job and come back, this year's situation, you must consider the long-term things." 」
Chatting with friends, Lin Jinfeng has considered doing loan sales, and also wants to go to the car dealership to do sales, in which industry can take root, he has no bottom in his heart, "at most three years, at least one year, if there is no stable income and career here, I will go back to my hometown."
After chatting with me for more than an hour, Lin Jinfeng hurried away in the drizzle, and he was in a hurry to go to another party, where 5 or 6 colleagues were waiting for him, or to discuss the way out in the future.
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The characters in the text use pseudonyms.