Chengjing "prefers" heavy assets Eight months sprint launched the first asset-heavy rental housing project

Unlike most housing rental projects that favor urban white-collar workers, Chengjing Rental Group has set up a "blue-collar" track to build staff dormitories.

After the completion of the acquisition of two asset-heavy projects, on the morning of April 26, Chengjing Rental announced on its WeChat public account that Chengjing Songjiang Zhongshan Community has completed the official identification of rental housing, and Chengjing Rental Group's first asset-heavy project and Songjiang's largest dormitory-type rental housing project is expected to be officially listed in May.

Located in the core area of Songjiang New Town, Shanghai, Chengjing Songjiang Zhongshan Community will supply 438 affordable rental housing units with more than 2,700 beds to the market. With a total construction area of more than 18,000 square meters and more than 1,100 square meters of shared space, the project is one of the largest dormitory-type rental housing projects in Shanghai.

At present, the commercial street brought by the community has basically completed the investment promotion work, and will provide convenient services including comprehensive supermarkets, Chinese simple meals, vegetable and fruit stores, pharmacies, barber shops and other convenient services around the basic needs of the daily life of residents. All housing and public areas in the community have completed pre-operation testing to ensure that the community can provide a higher quality supply of multi-level rental housing after it is put into operation.

Origin

Chengjing Rental is a new brand, but its recent market dynamics have been more frequent than some veteran players.

Click on its official WeChat public account, and the earliest push was on June 12 last year. That was the day of the official brand launch.

According to the article, Chengjing Rental Group is a leading affordable rental housing asset management platform in China jointly initiated by Guanbo Qicheng and the core founder team of Easy Apartment. The group recently launched its "EASE LIVING" rental operation brand for Chinese mainland in Shanghai.

But behind Chengjing's rental, these two initiators are not the only ones.

Starting from Guanbo Kaicheng, the company is a new real estate investment business platform jointly established by Chow Tai Fook Enterprises and Kaicheng Investment in May 2023. Focusing on the layout and investment of China's real estate market, we provide domestic and foreign institutional investors with full-cycle services such as fund management, investment and financing, development and construction, asset management and operation management in the real estate field.

"Guanbo Kaicheng" focuses on real estate or new infrastructure assets that are currently eligible for the issuance of domestic public REITs, such as affordable rental housing, biomedical industrial parks and high-end manufacturing industrial parks.

The history of Easy House is relatively long. Judging from the official information, Easy House was established in May 2018, which is also the year of comprehensive renovation of boarding houses. According to data, the cumulative financing of blue-collar apartments in 2018 exceeded 10 billion yuan, becoming the fastest growing segment of the long-term rental apartment industry.

In this context, since its birth, Easy House has focused on providing high-end corporate customers with overall housing service solutions for employees and creating closed-loop human resources services.

Originally a member of Shanghai Wenwen Investment Group, the group provided it with start-up capital and related management experience, which enabled it to develop, and perhaps also influenced its future development path in the process.

All in all, there are actually three backgrounds behind Chengjing Rental Group, namely Chow Tai Fook Enterprises, Kaicheng Investment, and the independent development of the Easy Apartment team. The five projects in operation of Easy Residence have also been integrated with Chengjing Rental Group.

From the perspective of cooperation and division of labor, Guanbo Qicheng will share the responsibilities of manager and executive team with the core founder team of Easy Apartment. Relying on years of investment and management experience in China's real estate field, he focuses on new platform construction, project screening, asset management operation and subsequent exit.

The professional experience of Guanbo Qicheng in real estate investment, equity financing and fund management, as well as the operational experience and customer resources of the core founder team of Easy Apartment, especially in dormitory-type rental housing projects, will be fully utilized.

Another staff dormitory track

The cooperation between Guanbo Qicheng and Easy Residence is obviously an instant hit. Shortly after announcing the launch of the "EASE LIVING" brand, it quickly completed its first M&A transaction.

On June 19 last year, just one week after the announcement of the release of "EASE LIVING", Chengjing Rental Group announced that it would hold a strategic cooperation signing ceremony with New Century Tourism Group, officially completing the acquisition of the independent dormitory park project held by New Century Tourism Group located in the core area of Songjiang New Town, Shanghai.

This is the Chengjing Songjiang Zhongshan Community Project, which will be officially launched in May this year.

The groundbreaking ceremony of the renovation project was held on August 16, 2023, and Chengjing Rental Group comprehensively upgraded and renovated the internal environment, building façade, software and hardware facilities of the project, and it was only 8 months from the start of construction to the completion of the official recognition of the rental housing.

Luan Zhuozhi, co-founder and co-CEO of Chengjing Rental Group, once mentioned in an interview: "At present, the industry's attention to the blue-collar market is still small, and it can be said that the dormitory-type affordable rental housing market is still a blank, and this part of the rigid needs is ignored by society and capital. This is a good development opportunity for Chengjing Rental. ”

And Chengjing Rental is indeed on this slightly niche track, cherishing the current opportunity and seeking development at a faster speed.

In March this year, Chengjing Rental Group completed the acquisition of the independent building project located at Nos. 8, 11 and 13, Lane 858, Huanzhen South Road, Dachang Town, Baoshan District, Shanghai, and plans to transform and upgrade the project into a dormitory-type affordable rental housing project in Baoshan District.

According to public information, the target of the acquisition is three independent high-rise buildings with a total construction area of 40,310.28 square meters, which is an independent group composed of three 19-storey apartment buildings above ground, which was originally an independent group in a high-end pension community.

The project has completed the pre-identification of affordable rental housing in Baoshan District, with a total of 998 single-room and multi-room dormitory-type affordable rental housing planned, and is expected to enter the market in 2024.

With the completion of two asset-heavy projects in quick succession and the introduction of them to the market in a shorter period of time, Chengjing Rental Group has caught up with the industry in its areas of expertise.

Heavy assets, affordable rental housing, judging from these two keywords alone, the intention of Chengjing Rental Group is obvious.

In June 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) issued the Notice on Further Improving the Pilot Work of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) in the Infrastructure Sector, which for the first time included affordable rental housing in the infrastructure scope of issueable infrastructure REITs.

Since then, "Nabao" has also become one of the things that various market participants are keen on. However, until now, the number of rental housing REITs that have been approved for listing is still limited. Since the beginning of this year, there has been news from time to time that some urban investment companies and real estate companies are promoting the application of rental housing REITs, as well as the launch of expansion plans for listed projects.

In the field of housing leasing that continues to roll involution, especially in the rental housing track, Chengjing Rental Group, which holds affordable rental housing projects, can't wait to join it. It has also chosen a more niche path, at least for now, with a clear first-mover advantage.

With the entry of the two projects in Songjiang and Baoshan into the market, it may soon be seen that Chengjing Rental Group will continue to move forward.