The rankings of different institutions are "data fights", and the rankings of the same company differ by dozens of places

Achievement injects water and spends money to buy the list, and the real estate rankings are "catty"

  Spending money on rankings has become an open secret in the industry.

In order to achieve the annual sales scale, some real estate companies let general contractors, sales agencies, cooperative units, etc. fake contracts, and some even directly spend money to improve their rankings

  The chaos in the real estate rankings has plagued the industry for many years. False data not only misleads the majority of home buyers, but also provides false signals to financial institutions and decision-making departments, which is not conducive to stabilizing housing prices and stabilizing expectations.

  Reporters Wu Menda, Dong Jianguo, Guo Yujing, Sun Fei

  The top real estate companies are in a debt crisis?

Every once in a while, different agencies will publish rankings of real estate companies.

The Xinhua Daily Telegraph reporter's survey found that these rankings often "fight with data", and even the same company's rankings in different lists differ by dozens of places.

  Questions about the authenticity and accuracy of the real estate rankings have been endless.

Insiders said that the chaos in the real estate rankings has plagued the industry for many years. False data not only misleads the majority of home buyers, but also provides false signals to financial institutions and decision-making departments, which is not conducive to stabilizing housing prices and stabilizing expectations.

  The list hides "cats and tricks", and the data is filled with water

  At present, the relatively well-known lists in the real estate industry are released by third-party institutions such as the Creeper Research Center under the E-House Enterprise Group, Shanghai E-House Real Estate Research Institute, China Index Research Institute, and Yihan Think Tank.

  These evaluation agencies will rank real estate companies from different perspectives such as land acquisition, sales, net profit, debt and financing.

The reporter compared these rankings and found that there are big differences.

  On the "Research Results of China's Top 100 Real Estate Companies in 2020" jointly released by China Index Holdings and China Index Academy, Tahoe Group, which has repeatedly sold assets and debts, and has been adjusted by Moody's from stable to negative. Ranked 31st.

In this list, Tahoe ranked 27th in 2017 and ranked 23rd in 2018 and 2019.

In the "2020 China Top 500 Real Estate Development Enterprises Evaluation Research Report" issued by Shanghai E-House Real Estate Research Institute and China Real Estate Association, Tahoe Group has not entered the top 100, and it is difficult to find its trace in the entire list.

  Similar to Tahoe, Zhejiang Jiayuan Group ranks 38th on the top 100 list of China Index Research Institute, but it disappeared from the list of Shanghai E-House Real Estate Research Institute.

  In addition, many well-known companies have also disappeared from China Index Research Institute's list this year, such as Xincheng Holdings Real Estate, which ranked 8th in the industry in sales in 2019, and Gemdale Real Estate, a well-known real estate company.

  In the 2018 and 2019 Real Estate Enterprise Product Power Rankings released by E-House Research Institute, some companies have undergone tremendous changes in their rankings within a year.

For example, in the top 50 list in 2018, there is no Country Garden, and in 2019 the ranking of this company suddenly soared to the 19th place.

  Why are there obvious differences in the lists published by different institutions, or even the lists of the same institution in different years?

Many people in the industry have said that the reasons for this phenomenon are that the real estate companies give different data to the organization, or there is data injection.

  Song Ding, director of the Tourism and Real Estate Research Center of the China (Shenzhen) Comprehensive Development Research Institute, said that some real estate sales data are "puffy."

For example, deliberately emphasizing the higher number of contract sales, and weakening the equity sales, hoping to use a larger sales number to improve the company's industry status and influence.

  More likely, there is a consulting and cooperation relationship between real estate companies and the list publishing agency, which is often said to spend money to buy the list.

  In fact, spending money on rankings has become an open secret in the industry.

Tian Ming, Chairman of Landsea Group, once publicly stated that in order to achieve annual sales, some real estate companies let general contractors, sales agencies, cooperative units and other fake contracts, and some even directly spend money to raise their rankings.

  In the opinion of Zhang Dawei, chief analyst of Centaline Property, the ranking is the most intuitive way to verify the strength of a real estate company, so beautifying data has become an open secret in the industry.

"Real estate companies usually cooperate with third-party list publishing agencies, and the cost of cooperation is related to the level of the ranking, ranging from hundreds of thousands to tens of millions."

  A person in charge of brand marketing of Fujian-based real estate companies who participated in the operation of the list revealed to reporters: "The company has cooperated with relevant third-party organizations for many years. Small and medium-sized real estate companies pay more attention to the ranking of the list, and the cooperation cost is millions. Get started."

  In fact, the authority of ranking agencies has long been in doubt.

In July 2016, the Ministry of Civil Affairs announced the list of the ninth batch of "offshore societies" and "cottage societies", and the name of the China Index Academy was listed.

Nevertheless, for many years, the China Index Academy still publishes the list every year.

  Ranking is the best advertisement for real estate companies

  The irregular rankings of real estate companies have misled ordinary buyers.

Many people think that the company ranks well and buys a house with confidence, but this is not the case.

This year, Tahoe Group has been repeatedly exposed to deep debt crisis. Projects in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou have been suspended. Some owners have rented houses while repaying loans, embarking on the road of rights protection.

  On the other hand, industry insiders believe that in addition to bringing exposure and popularity, the more important role of the list is to provide support for financing.

Li Yujia, the chief researcher of the Guangdong Housing Policy Research Center, believes that for real estate companies, exaggerating performance is conducive to showing the company's strength on the one hand, and also conducive to corporate financing on the other.

  "Many financial institutions only issue loans to the top 100 real estate companies or the top 50 real estate companies. If they are not on the list, the interest rate cost of the company may rise, or even get financing." Li Yujia said.

  A relevant person in charge of the credit department of a commercial bank in Beijing told reporters that in the context of strict regulation of real estate, many real estate companies that banks will require financing are among the top 100, which has also promoted the profit chain of fraudulent lists.

  "At present, because there is no ranking disclosed by the government, the market can only rely on the release of intermediary agencies." Zhang Dawei said that real estate companies rely on rankings given by third-party institutions for financing, credit ratings, and overseas bond issuance of domestic financial institutions.

  "Ranking is the best advertisement for real estate companies. Whether it is real estate companies introducing partners, or local government land transfers or project investment, they will all value the rankings." Zhang Dawei told reporters.

  The chaos of ranking data brings many harms.

Li Yujia believes that artificially elevated real estate business performance data provides wrong signals to the financial market and credit rating, and is not conducive to financial institutions to make reasonable credit evaluations and loan access.

  "Currently, the real estate industry is generally facing financing difficulties. Many small and medium-sized real estate companies have a certain degree of redemption crisis. If small and medium-sized enterprises with tight capital chains rely on buying fake rankings and packaging financing, it is easy to cause financial risks." Zhang Dawei said.

  Last year, the actual sales data of the listed real estate company China Aoyuan Group doubled from the contracted sales estimated by the institutional rankings, triggering a sharp drop in stock prices.

The real estate company Jiayuan Group announced sales of 20.18 billion yuan in 2018, but some third-party list statistics are 87.55 billion yuan. The gap of more than 60 billion yuan makes public opinion question the authenticity of the data.

  Experts pointed out that some third-party agencies have greatly exaggerated the data of developers, which can easily create a hot real estate market, which is not conducive to stabilizing housing prices and stabilizing expectations.

Knowing that water injection is still difficult to effectively supervise

  Many real estate market regulators suggested that the unhealthy trends of data injection affect the healthy development of the industry, and measures should be introduced as soon as possible to strengthen supervision and standardize the third-party evaluation industry.

  In the opinion of some industry insiders, the caliber of developer sales data statistics is diverse and chaotic, which objectively provides room for data flooding and chaos.

Li Yujia said, for example, sales can be either the amount of traffic or the amount of equity. It can be counted on the basis of online signing, or on the basis of developer subscription. This has brought diversification and confusion in statistics.

  At the same time, compared with the statistics of intermediary agencies and research institutions at the developer cooperation level, the sales data confirmed by the government online signing system is relatively lagging.

"This has resulted in the fact that it is still difficult for the supervisory authority to effectively supervise it, knowing that the data is flooded." Li Yujia said.

  Many people in the industry suggested that to regulate the release of the list, the real estate consulting business should be stripped of the interests of third-party publishing agencies.

  "From international experience, the main publishers of industry rankings are generally credible and fair industry associations or leading intermediary organizations," said Li Yujia. However, in China, due to the imperfect industry credit system, everyone recognizes , There are relatively few third-party evaluation organizations with credibility.

  He suggested that it is necessary to strengthen the construction of industry self-discipline, cultivate credible industry associations, and let them directly publish the list, or strengthen the supervision of third-party evaluation organizations in the industry.

  In Zhang Dawei's view, it is necessary to separate the benefit binding between the consulting business and the ranking publishing business, improve the corporate integrity evaluation, query and service system, increase the cost of untrustworthiness, and increase punishment for the illegal publication of reports by market entities and the masses. Intensity.

  Experts also suggested that penalties for counterfeiting real estate companies and list publishing units should be increased. It is recommended that the list can be directly linked to tax authorities, and local tax authorities should investigate real estate companies paying taxes based on the list data.