After a few days of fermenting the topic of high rents in Beijing, it finally produced phased results. On August 22, the Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Construction and other departments exposed 23 intermediaries with violations of laws and regulations.

　　At the same time, there are eight types of problems in the long-rent apartment area: renting rent, operating without a license, not depositing a deposit, renting a group, subletting others, forcing a loan to pay rent, and not repairing the rented house. Adopt soft violence (blocking eyes, intimidation, harassment) to threaten renters and so on.

　　With the advent of the stock house era and the proposal of “rental and sales”, in recent years, a number of specialized leasing institutions have begun to rise and enter the expansion stage. According to the data of the Shell Research Institute, as of the first half of this year, the institutionalized housing in the top ten cities nationwide accounted for 9%, and will continue to expand in the future, and will spawn a large number of large-scale operators.

　　These companies have changed the fragmentation and disorder of the rental market to a certain extent, but so far, they have not been able to standardize the industry. Among the many factors that drive up rents, vicious competition and irregularities between institutions are still unavoidable.

　　Then, what changes have occurred in the business model of leasing companies in the past few years? With the advent of the era of renting and selling, can compliance and profitability be resolved?

　　The secret of the "vacant period"

　　For a long time, housing leasing companies have mostly operated in the form of intermediation services. That is, publish the listing information, introduce the homeowner and the tenant to meet and sign the lease contract, and then charge a service fee equivalent to one month's rent.

　　Under the trend of network and platformization, the situation of information asymmetry has gradually improved, intermediation services have cooled down, and leasing companies (intermediaries) have assumed more roles like “two landlords”. Specifically, the leasing company signs a house custody contract with the homeowner, obtains the management rights of the house, and then rents the house at a higher price. In the meantime, the tenant and the leasing company – not the homeowner – sign a contract and don’t even meet the homeowner. In this model, the source of income for the leasing company is the difference.

　　“Although the leasing industry is constantly changing, the basic source of profit is to change from earning service fees to eating spreads.” A senior practitioner in Beijing told the 21st Century Business Herald that, in essence, long-term rental apartment operators are “two landlords”. ", but relatively advanced.

　　“But when you enter the price difference stage, a lot of services will be generated and the profit points will start to increase.” He said, for example, in order to obtain higher spreads, the organization will improve the decoration, cut off the partition, and provide value-added services ( Repair, cleaning, etc.), increase rental space, or improve living comfort.

　　Obviously, the cost structure is more complicated in the leasing industry, which is based on the “spreading price difference”. The above-mentioned practitioners said that the cost of a leasing company can be roughly divided into two categories: housing cost and operating cost.

　　The CEO Xiong Lin once told the 21st Century Business Report that the operating costs mainly come from three aspects: First, the cost of the decoration is adjusted, the organization is more efficient than the individual; the second is the labor cost; the third is the vacant cost, if the vacancy rate is high, Capital operation efficiency will decline and profits will be diluted. In Xiong Lin's view, vacant costs are "the core of the problem."

　　Leasing companies will reduce costs in a variety of ways. It is understood that large long-term rental apartment operators have long-term cooperation with the decoration company. Due to the uniform style, the operation is quite skilled. For example, in Beijing, it takes only 15-20 days to complete the hard work of a rough house, which is amazingly efficient. In addition, in the procurement of furniture appliances, large operators can also reduce costs through centralized procurement.

　　In terms of reducing the vacancy period and saving vacant costs, operators have a unique set of practices.

　　In May of this year, Wang Yu (a pseudonym) entrusted a 55-square-meter house in a certain district of Beijing's East Fifth Ring Road to the free of charge. The two sides signed a three-year contract. He told the 21st Century Business Herald that due to the delivery of the rough house, in the first year of the contract, the two parties agreed on a three-month vacancy period for house renovation and early rent-seeking. In the last two years of the contract, a vacant period of 25 days is agreed each year for the expiration and sublease of the house.

　　Wang Yu said that this nearly five-month vacancy period is not counted within the escrow period. That is, the custody contract signed by the two parties is three years, and the time for holding the house is about three years and five months.

　　In Wang Yu's view, due to the high efficiency of decoration, the Beijing leasing market is in a stage of short supply. At least half of the five-month vacancy period can be “save” by operators. Not only does it not have the so-called “vacancy costs”, but it also provides additional benefits.

　　He also said that considering the brand influence of the free, even if some small intermediaries bid higher, he still entrusted the house to manage.

　　Earnings outlook remains uncertain

　　According to the city's real estate network, in the second quarter of this year, the rental yield (annual rental income / home value) of 50 typical cities was 2.6%. Among them, the average rental yield of the four first-tier cities is only 1.7%. In contrast, the 2017 London indicator is around 3%, New York is about 4.7%, Los Angeles is about 5.7%, and Tokyo is about 4.3%.

　　The agency believes that the rental yields of some cities in China are at a low level, indicating that the deviation between rents and housing prices in China is relatively high. The reason is that "the price increase is too large."

　　The aforementioned practitioners explained to the reporter the pricing mechanism of rent: comprehensive consideration of costs, other housing prices in the same region, market trends, and the peak season. At the same time, brand operators will rise again.

　　According to data released by Zhuge House, in July 2018, the average rent of listed rental housing in Beijing was 90.12 yuan / square meter · month, which has increased by 15.75% since this year. Among them, the average rent of brand apartments is 157.2 yuan / square meter · month, significantly higher than the market average.

　　Despite this, branded apartments still face a profit problem. So far, there is no long-term rental apartment brand that can achieve full profitability. At the beginning of this year, Xiong Lin told the 21st Century Business Herald that the leasing industry is characterized by the need for economic input in the initial stage, and the scale effect can be highlighted after a certain period of time. It is still an investment period.

　　Gao Jing, the founder and CEO of Eggshell Apartment, gave the answer. "For the profit problem, I believe that the capital market is very rational. Everyone must look at the long-term goals and long-term interests. At this stage, we are pursuing scale and service. And brand, profit is not a problem we consider."

　　In order to make a profit, leasing companies will adopt some non-compliance measures to increase operating income, such as “breaking off”, etc., but including rigid regulations on housing renovation.

　　“Internationally, many densely populated large cities allow operators to separate houses for rent. However, in many cities in China, 'breaking partitions' are strictly forbidden, even if water and electricity, fire protection and other security measures are not good.” The aforementioned practitioners Said that this is equivalent to declaring the death of the "N+1" mode.

　　At the same time, for commercial real estate, factory buildings and other properties with relatively low housing costs, many cities are not allowed to adjust the hydropower system. "There is basically no way to do it, and there is no basic rent for listings."

　　Most respondents believe that the recent discussion on rents can be an opportunity to standardize the leasing industry. But from a business perspective, there is still a long way to go to form an effective profit model.

　　At least at this stage, most practitioners are not very optimistic about the profitability of the industry. On August 19th, Pan Shiyi, chairman of SOHO China, said, “The rental price of long-rent apartments is less than 1%, and the price of renting houses is doubled. It is a loss. So I think there must be a guide in the process of doing this business. Don't deviate from this guide, do things that make money, don't do things that don't make money. Don't be like a lot of entrepreneurs, take pride in burning money, this is a no return."