Happy families are similar

Exactly 20 years ago, Sun Hongbin, who was still the founder of Shunchi, participated in the Boao Forum for the first time in 2004.

Sun is always the target of public criticism. Due to the high level of attention, his 30-minute speech in the morning was changed to a question and answer and extended to an hour. He said that in 2004, he would complete the sales collection of 12 billion yuan. On the spot, Wang Shi did not name and accused:

This is bragging.

Some netizens launched a vote on "Will Shunchi go to destruction". There was only one vote against it, and Mr. Sun himself voted for it.

Earlier in February, Vanke held a retreat at Yunhai Villa in Shenzhen, and Wang Wenjin, chief financial officer, said that Vanke could reach 100 billion yuan in sales within 10 years. Wang Shi commented on Wang Wenjin's speech on the spot, which was a young man's hot head:

The Great Leap Forward is being made.

Like Mr. Sun, R&F Li Silian also participated in the Boao Forum for the first time. He looked at Mr. Sun, who was being attacked everywhere, and said that if Mr. Sun can achieve 10 billion sales this year, it will be the sum of the sales of Vanke and our company:

It is indeed the first in the real estate industry.

After participating in the forum, Mr. Sun was a little uncomfortable. He said that I hadn't slept well that day, and thought to myself - I didn't offend anyone.

Lao Sun was still too young at that time to know the ancestral motto of "making a fortune in silence".

At that time, the company with the largest real estate sales in China was also the first company with sales of more than 10 billion yuan, and it was unknown and did not even participate in that forum.

1

In 2004, Shunchi achieved sales of 9.2 billion yuan, and Vanke's sales for the year were 9.16 billion yuan.

At that time, the Fujian developers had not yet emerged. The most popular are still several companies in Guangdong, such as R&F, Agile, Country Garden, Evergrande, and Hopson. They are known as the "Five Tigers of South China".

The lowest sales volume is Evergrande, with only 1.4 billion. The sales of R&F, Agile, and Country Garden were 6.4 billion and 4.5 billion, respectively, and 3.2 billion.

The highest sales volume turned out to be the most low-key one - Hopson.

The boss, Zhu Mengyi, does not participate in any industry activities and does not see reporters. But his Hopson quietly sold 10 billion yuan in this year, becoming the first real estate company in China to cross the 10 billion mark.

His first project, Huajing New Town, was a large area of farmland in Tianhe, Guangzhou. Not long after the land was acquired, the government included the land in the planning of the city center. Later, Hopson introduced the concept of community to Guangzhou, and they also proposed the concepts of "hidden beams and hidden pillars".

The project was a big hit. Later, Boss Zhu used the same model to develop Junjing Garden, Dijing Garden, etc. After his ability to dig gold was verified again and again, the development model was soon copied to the first- and second-tier core cities across the country.

In the two years when it topped China's top 1 real estate company, Hopson's development scale in one city in Guangzhou was equivalent to the total development scale of Vanke's five major cities in China. Guangzhou's profits also exceeded Vanke's total profits in the five major cities.

The proud Wang Shi has been dissing smoothly all those years. But when it comes to Boss Zhu, it is quite complimentary:

Hopson is the invisible real estate aircraft carrier.

Vanke's war investment department later deliberately studied Hopson, and they wrote in the report:

Hopson has a forward-looking vision for land reserves, closely following the city's future development hotspots, effectively reducing land costs and obtaining rich investment returns.

However, a few years after reaching the top, in the era of rapid real estate development, Hopson's sales have been hovering around the threshold of 10 billion. The outside world began to joke and question Hopson as a "lagging invisible aircraft carrier." ”

For a few years, there were five unsolved mysteries in the real estate world. For example, when did the property market bubble burst, what did Wang Shi like about Tian Pujun, what did Wang Sicong's next girlfriend look like, where did Sun Hongbin's money come from, and:

Why did Hopson fall behind?

In 2021, China's real estate sales hit a record 18 trillion yuan. Sunac's contracted sales are nearly 600 billion, Vanke's contracted sales are more than 620 billion, and R&F, one of the five tigers in South China, has sales of 120 billion.

23 billion.

No matter how crazy the feast is, there is an end moment. After the carnival, there is endless desolation. The central bank's three-line policy and the market's turn have made real estate developers who stepped on the hot wheels instantly beaten back to their original shape.

Many real estate developers returned overnight to the pre-liberation period.

Hopson, which has always been labeled as "left behind", is still three green lines. In 2023, Hopson's revenue reached HK$34.292 billion, and the core profit at the end of the period was HK$2.314 billion, a year-on-year increase of 114%.

In the profit list of real estate enterprises launched by an institution, the top ten are all state-owned enterprises, and there are only 2 pure private enterprises, one of which is Hopson.

2

Two years ago, the Hangzhou No. 1 luxury house large flat team went to Beijing to learn from experience.

They ran around and came back to say that there were not many real mansions in the imperial capital. No. 8 Xiaoyun Road is one of the most worth learning from.

Coincidentally. Last year I went to Chengdu to study Luhu, one of China's most legendary mansions. Chatting with the general manager of Luhu Design, I asked them which luxury houses they went to China to study, and they said that there are not many in China, but Beijing has seen one, that is:

Beijing.

The predecessor of Manhe Beijing is No. 8 Xiaoyun Road.

As the first generation of top luxury houses in Beijing, when the average price per square meter in Beijing in 2009 did not exceed 15,000 yuan, the opening price of No. 8 Xiaoyun Road was 80,000 yuan. The slogan they shouted was:

It started at 80,000 and more than 180,000.

When the luxury house also began to have a high turnover, Hopson has been very slow, and the sales are not in a hurry, No. 8 Xiaoyun Road has been sold for more than ten years, and the value of the goods is still tens of billions. This gives them time to do the work of updating and iterating.

In 2018, Hopson's second-generation Jurong invited 85-year-old Aman founder Adrian Zecha to create the world's first MAHA accommodation category at 8 Xiaoyun Road: Manhe Beijing.

Manhe Beijing has brought real estate back to the era of handicrafts, and the ceiling grille alone required five skilled workers to take 280 hours to complete. Each wooden floor under the owner's feet is made of white oak logs from the bitter cold of Siberia, Russia. Before becoming flooring, they need to be cured for 3-6 months, balanced drying 4 times, and then bonded with glue imported from Germany.

And so on, Manhe's sales can be talked about for hours. Manhe Beijing soon became the ceiling of Beijing's luxury homes. Even Musk's visit to China was to have dinner with friends at the club in Manhe Beijing.

There is no secret to the private enterprises that are still alive in this cruel cycle. Happy families are similar, with safety as the highest pursuit. Hopson does not use financial leverage much, emphasizes the absolute safety line, and only does very simple things:

High-end properties, core cities, residential and commercial dual tracks at the same time.

What has been adhered to for a long time is called strategy.

From the perspective of the distribution of Hopson's sales in cities, residential products are mainly distributed in first- and second-tier cities. 70% of sales come from high-end manshire products. The Shanghai Manyun project sold 15.1 billion in a year.

Shanghai Manyun is on the Yangpu Riverside. In this sector, Manyun opened to a price of 121,000 yuan per square meter, pulling the average price of new houses in Yangpu Binjiang to a level similar to that of Hongkou and Xuhui Binjiang.

Hopson said that this year, the products can also bring at least 21 billion sales to the company.

More than 80% of their commercial real estate projects are also located in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Beijing Chaoyang Hopson gathers a large number of Internet celebrity stores, and on weekends, it seems that people from all over Beijing seem to come to Chaoyang Hopson.

Some media wrote that they went to a book launch, and the corridor was full of people, and the straight elevator between the B1 and 1st floors was also full. In the noisy crowd, I could hear the sonorous voice of an uncle nearby:

Thirty years ago, Wangfujing was the same.

In 2023, the annual sales of Beijing Chaoyang Hopson Hui will exceed 6 billion yuan, and the annual sales of Shanghai Wujiao Place, will exceed 5 billion yuan, with a maximum daily passenger flow of more than 200,000 people.

As of the end of 2023, Hopson's commercial sector has business in more than 10 mainstream cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, with more than 100 commercial real estate projects and a completed and operating project area of more than 5 million square meters.

This year, Hopson's new commercial brand, Chaoji Hopson, will also officially enter the market. Located in Changping, Beijing, Hopson Hui will be the largest new concept complex in Beijing.

In the past two years, the definition of "not wanting to forge ahead" has been revised by companies like Hopson. The leverage itself is not high, and they are still reducing debt. In the past few years, they have reduced their debt at an average level of 10 billion per year.

Real estate has changed from a championship to a knockout round, and everyone suddenly understood what Mr. Zhu said in his early years:

Scale can sometimes lead to disaster, and quality is more important than scale.