Closing a shop, changing business...The intermediary ran away in the cold winter of Shenzhen's property market
If the market continues to be weak in the second half of the year, more intermediaries will be transformed.
In 2019, 17-year-old Hunan girl Xiaoli came to Shenzhen and became a real estate agent.
For her with a junior high school education, this may be one of the few industries where rapid wealth accumulation is possible.
However, this year, after the "2·8" New Deal, she, who once earned more than 100,000 commissions in 2020, is facing the most downturn in the Shenzhen property market in a decade.
Some brokers like Xiaoli did not return to Shenzhen after the Spring Festival at the beginning of the year, and some left the intermediary industry in the spring and summer of this year, turning around to do takeaways, express delivery, and so on.
Regulations are setting off a reshuffle storm in Shenzhen's property market intermediary industry.
However, after several rounds of regulation and control, some experienced leading real estate intermediaries have long grasped the industry nature of the oligopolistic market structure.
Although they are also troubled by the coldness of second-hand housing transactions, they are systematically advancing staff training and upgrading of the second-hand housing transaction system in order to be more fully prepared to seize market opportunities when the next wave of market comes.
Individual intermediary agencies are hoping to take advantage of small intermediaries to clear up the opportunity to expand their business territory and make up for their shortcomings.
Market participants believe that in the real estate intermediary market in first-tier cities such as Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Beijing, the oligopolistic market structure will not change substantially. The market share of leading real estate intermediaries is expected to be further consolidated and increased. Others focus on Real estate brokerage brands that serve in a certain segment also have the opportunity to burst out with lasting vitality.
Intermediary practitioners find another way out
Although the Shenzhen Association of Real Estate Agents mentioned in the summary and forecast of the property market for the first half of 2021 released in early July, the total number of real-name registered employees in the city is still at a stable level, a slight decline of 11.8% year-on-year.
However, due to the high liquidity of the industry, many phenomena such as loss of registration and filing in the future, star ratings have not been continuously improved, or small intermediary agencies have not organized brokers to test and filing, etc., and the actual real estate brokerage staff exceeds The statistical caliber of the association is the default fact in the industry.
According to China Business News, since they are no longer optimistic about the Shenzhen property market this year, many intermediary brokers who have been in the business for about two years chose not to return to Shenzhen after the Spring Festival this year, but went to other cities.
Several industry interviewees told China Business News that in the first half of this year, Shenzhen's real estate agency staff lost about 10,000 people.
Along with this, small real estate intermediaries closed stores and went bankrupt in a desperate manner.
The deserted property market brought about by the "2·8" New Deal is considered to be the core factor in the resignation wave of real estate agencies in Shenzhen.
Regarding the transaction status of the stores from last year to the present, Xiao Luo, the manager of the real estate agency store in Bao'an District, Shenzhen, can use a "roller coaster" to describe the mood.
After the epidemic last year, the average price of many second-hand houses in the Baoan Center area of Bao'an District has soared to more than 100,000 yuan per square meter.
Throughout the second half of the year, Shenzhen's property market was hit by a trendy boom, tens of thousands of people grabbed homes, investors ran into the market, crowdfunding, and real estate speculation on behalf of others emerged one after another.
In the near-out-of-control rush of house looting, the business of real estate agency stores in popular sectors is booming, and it is not uncommon for franchised stores to sell houses for millions of yuan per year.
Whenever encountering a new hot market before and after the opening, the intermediary brokers are busy late into the night and it is normal for them to ignore meals.
The store where Ronaldinho is located is next to the Fantasia Huajun Homeland, an Internet celebrity disk in Baoan District. This kind of rigid demand disk with an area of 50 to 60 square meters and a total price of about 5 million yuan can be called the best window to observe the changes in the purchasing power of Shenzhen rigid demand customers. .
In the second half of last year, Ronaldinho's store opened as few as three or four orders a month, and as many as six or seven orders a month.
In the first half of this year, no one in the entire store issued an order.
After the "2·8" New Deal, two-thirds of the colleagues who originally planned to return to work in Shenzhen after the Spring Festival did not return.
"The cost of living in Shenzhen is too high. Many people from other provinces who come from their hometowns have chosen to work in the capital city of their hometown, considering that they can't open an order for a while after returning to Shenzhen."
Ronaldinho told CBN reporters that he has observed that many colleagues choose to take the initiative to close their doors if they do not see any improvement until May and June.
A person in charge of a store that took the initiative to close said that the main reason for the closure was cost pressure.
The rigid costs of his store, such as store expenses, labor costs, water and electricity taxes and miscellaneous fees, are basically maintained at around 15,000 yuan per month.
Most of the small and medium-sized real estate intermediary agencies have less than 10 stores, which have neither the advantage of storing customers nor the advantage of economies of scale. Once a store loses money, it will affect the whole body.
"In the beginning, the company reduced the number of store personnel to two. In May, it felt difficult to sustain it. It gradually cancelled some stores with small transaction volume in order to maintain the company's breakeven." He told a reporter from China Business News that now the company only There are two remaining stores in Futian and Nanshan.
Small intermediaries are on the verge of closing down, and brand intermediaries are hardly optimistic about their business.
A person in charge of a brand agency store in Futian District told Yicai.com that his store has shifted its main business to the agency business of house leasing and commercial and project management, and broadened its business channels. Twenty people were reduced to half.
The person in charge of another brand agency store in Futian District also recounted a similar situation.
In this market, Oguri, who has been in business for two years, chose to stay in the intermediary industry.
The reason is simple. She only has a junior high school education. Within a limited range of options, a real estate agency may have the highest ceiling for making money.
According to a reporter from China Business News, the property market in Shenzhen was relatively good last year. Employees like Xiaoli who are "half old and not new" can open about two orders a year and earn more than 100,000 yuan a year.
If you don’t open a single bill a month and only earn a basic salary of about 2,000 yuan, you usually rely on rent for a day, and your monthly income is about 5,000 to 6,000 yuan.
But more "semi-old and not new" employees like Oguri have joined the resignation army.
It was supposed to be the peak season for real estate transactions in May and June. Due to poor market conditions, discussions on "the preferred industry for real estate agency transfers" on WeChat groups and social forums gathered by various real estate agencies began to become popular.
Among them, takeaway delivery staff, couriers, and sales staff often become the first choice for real estate intermediary transfers.
When most intermediaries refer to these transition industries, they will more or less talk about "I am not highly educated, and it may be easier to adapt to manual work", or they will say "Sales and real estate agencies have high professional similarities." Spend".
"It is difficult for my fellow villager to survive with a basic salary of 2,000 yuan a month. Last month, he switched to the express delivery industry and his monthly income exceeded 10,000 yuan. The male colleagues who left the store were temporarily transferred to other industries." Oguri said.
Second-hand housing transactions record 10-year low
"Chunjiang plumbing duck prophet", in the real estate market, real estate agents are often the first to perceive the direction of the market.
The moment when market transactions are active is also when the intermediary team rapidly expands.
Taking the rising cycle of the property market in Shenzhen at the end of 2019 as an example, data from relevant agencies at that time showed that the proportion of new personal intermediary member applications increased by 6 percentage points year-on-year, and the number of new individual members increased by 11.5% year-on-year. Newcomers who have worked in the real estate agency industry are more willing to enter.
This is directly related to the adjustment of the luxury property tax in Shenzhen in November 2019, which led to a significant drop in the cost of real estate transaction taxes and fees, and the end of the property market at the end of the year.
The current wave of resignations from real estate agencies is also closely related to the real estate market.
Among them, the "2·8" New Deal caused the second-hand housing market to quickly turn cold, which is considered to be one of the core factors for the wave of intermediary turnover.
The "2·8" New Deal is the "Second-hand Housing Transaction Price Reference Mechanism" first proposed by the Shenzhen Municipal Housing and Construction Bureau in China.
It is based on the online price of second-hand housing, combined with the price of surrounding new houses, and compiled a "transaction reference price" for 3595 communities in Shenzhen.
The overall reference price of second-hand residential transactions is lower than the market price, which is equivalent to a disguised reduction of the bank’s down payment limit, increasing the burden of home buyers’ self-financing, and also extending the property market transaction cycle and cooling the property market.
Half a year after the introduction of the "2·8" New Deal, the actual impact exceeded market expectations. The average transaction price of second-hand residential properties in Shenzhen changed from the previous upward trend and turned to a decline.
Among them, the decline was the largest in March, there was a slight rebound in April, and the increase in May was lowered.
The downturn continues.
Statistics from the Shenzhen Municipal Housing and Construction Bureau show that in June 2021, the city's second-hand commercial residential transactions were 2,575 units, a 14% decrease from the previous month and a year-on-year decrease of 73.80%.
This is the first time since 2011 that Shenzhen's second-hand housing transaction volume has fallen below the 3,000-set mark during the non-Chinese New Year period, which can be described as a "10-year low".
In the same period last year, Shenzhen second-hand housing network signed 10,594 sets.
In the first half of this year, only 28,000 second-hand residential units were transferred in Shenzhen, a decrease of 45% from the previous month and 35% year-on-year. The transfer volume was the lowest in the past three years.
According to data from several research institutions such as Le Youjia, "the effect of regulation is very obvious."
The owner's mentality has also changed with the market.
According to the data monitoring of Leyoujia stores, after the introduction of the "2·8" New Deal, the owners were still in a wait-and-see period in March, and expectations were still high.
However, since April, the number of listings on the market has increased month by month, and prices have also begun to be lowered one after another. The proportion of lower-quoted houses has risen from 41% to 55%.
Back to the beginning of the year, this proportion was less than 20%.
In terms of regions, Futian, Bao'an, and Guangming in western Shenzhen, which have attracted much attention in this round of rising, have become more concentrated areas of lowered listings, while the proportion of lowered listings in Longgang, Luohu and Yantian in the eastern region has not changed much.
On the whole, the market is returning to rationality.
For Ronaldinho and his colleagues, moving towards a rational market is exactly what he likes to see.
Compared with the full commissions brought by the property market surge, Ronaldinho hopes that the market can operate in an orderly and stable manner.
"The ups and downs of the industry are turbulent, and it is easy to breed chaos such as intermediary speculation violations in the short term, which has eroded the healthy operation of the real estate transaction ecosystem for a long time." In his view, the industry is becoming more and more specialized. Stable and calm, you can also sink your heart to polish professionalism.
At present, the leading real estate intermediaries have begun to feel the impact of the rational market.
"The store transaction has not returned to the hotness of the second half of last year, but there are more than ten orders per month, and a stable and orderly state is good." A head agency intermediary in Futian District of Lianjia told a reporter from China Business News. The process of clearing out small intermediaries is also a process of increasing market share of large intermediaries. The company has recently contacted many closed small intermediary stores to take over and revitalize such closed stores. Further business development can also make up for the shortcomings in the company's expansion outlets.
Another round of reshuffle of Shenzhen intermediaries
The data released by the Shenzhen Real Estate Agency Association confirms the bleak situation of the real estate agency industry.
In the first half of 2021, the industry’s average monthly number of online signings per capita is 0.10, which is 46% lower than the average per capita per month in 2020.
Whether this situation will change in the second half of the year is still unknown.
The Shenzhen Real Estate Intermediary Association also pointed out that in the short term, the impact of the "2·8" New Deal on employees can still be dealt with, but if the current transaction volume is below the "prosperity and decline line" (monthly average second-hand housing online signing continues to be low for a long time) When the market of 5000 sets) has become the "new normal", the scale of real estate intermediary practitioners may fluctuate significantly in the second half of the year.
Market participants believe that small real estate intermediaries have become the most severely impacted targets in the current wave of resignations due to their weak anti-risk capabilities.
Similar to many cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, Shenzhen's real estate intermediary industry, which is more competitive in the market, has shown a typical oligopolistic market pattern.
According to the historical standard index data released by the Shenzhen Real Estate Agency Association earlier, the total number of online orders signed by the four major banks (Qfang.com, Lianjia, Zhongyuan, and Leyoujia) has shown an overall upward trend in recent years, from 45 in 2016. % Increased to about 60% in recent years.
An earlier report issued by the Shenzhen real estate agency industry pointed out that the distribution of industry employees is severely divided.
As of January 1, 2020, the four major institutions accounted for 74% of the total staff.
A person in charge of Le Youjia told the CBN reporter: "This round of shock will further strengthen the dominant position of leading real estate intermediaries, and the situation of clearing out small intermediaries will continue for some time."
In addition, a rumor is still widely circulated and fermented in the Shenzhen intermediary industry, that is, the Shenzhen real estate information platform will be launched soon.
Rumors once said that this officially-led second-hand housing transaction system will be put into trial operation in mid-July.
It is rumored that the system has been connected to the "i Shenzhen" government service platform, and the real estate agency information will be connected with this official system in the future.
In the view of market participants, once this system is online, the value of intermediaries will weaken, which may have a great impact on the intermediary industry, and is more likely to produce a demonstration effect similar to the "second-hand housing transaction price reference mechanism". It caused other cities across the country to follow suit and had a strong impact on the real estate agency industry.
From another perspective, the rumor that the official dominance of the second-hand housing transaction system can cause external discussions is also directly related to the uneven service level of the domestic intermediary industry, poor intermediary service experience and low trust.
Many home buyers who have noticed this rumor said, “I am very much looking forward to the emergence of such a system to force intermediaries to improve their service standards”, “The service level of domestic real estate agencies is still at the stage of a hammer sale”, and “Professional domestic real estate agencies There is a huge gap between chemical literacy and Europe and the United States", "the real estate industry moving towards refined management needs more professional real estate intermediary services to match" and so on.
Behind the aspirations of buyers is their dissatisfaction with the current level of intermediary services. In recent years, real estate intermediary services have indeed repeatedly ranked at the forefront of various consumer complaints.
Take Shenzhen as an example. Last year, the property market was full of speculation. Real estate intermediaries participated in illegal real estate speculation, assisted in obtaining business loans, and forged house purchase qualifications and other illegal activities.
Even the so-called "regular army" such as the four major companies (Qfang.com, Lianjia, Zhongyuan, and Leyoujia), there are many intermediaries who wander below the bottom line of professional ethics, and speculation has boosted the false fire in the property market.
However, the core personnel of the professional high-level real estate speculators that have attracted much attention from the outside world involve real estate intermediaries.
It is precisely related cases of speculative associations like "Shenzhen Real Estate Management" that are constantly in disorder, which makes the trust relationship between real estate agents and buyers very fragile.
However, the relevant person in charge of the Shenzhen Real Estate Intermediary Association clearly denied the disintermediation of the "second-hand housing transaction system".
"This is the renewal of the housing transaction system by the government authorities, not the new version of the disintermediation of the housing transaction system. External claims are exaggerated."
According to a reporter from China Business News, the real estate intermediaries represented by the four major behaviors in Shenzhen are also doing similar housing transaction system updates and employee training.
"Currently the second-hand housing transaction process has not changed, and there is no need to worry about the transaction process." The person in charge of a leading intermediary agency said that the company's current stage is mainly to improve and train employees in business literacy.
The person in charge expressed optimistic expectations for the future of the industry.
He has been in the business for more than 20 years and told the CBN reporter that in the past few years of the development of the intermediary industry, discussions about disintermediation have almost never stopped, especially the Internet reshaping traditional industries.
However, he always believes that the professional value barriers of the intermediary industry are sufficient to help high-quality real estate intermediary brokers through the cycle and stand out.
"Real estate transaction is a low-frequency, non-standard, high-value, high-risk project, involving property rights, various disputes, etc., involving various knowledge such as law, finance, taxes and fees, and the degree of professionalism is not low. Some buyers think The intermediary fee of 2% to 3% is not worth it. That is the problem of the inadequacy of intermediary service itself, and the non-real estate intermediary industry has no value." He also told the CBN reporter that the company will make full use of this small intermediary to clear The opportunity to rest, improve the professional quality of the company’s personnel, and seek suitable stores to expand opportunities.
According to a reporter from China Business News, with the exception of Le Youjia and other leading real estate intermediaries with outstanding cost control advantages, they have achieved an increase in market share even when the market is down.
There are also professional subdivision intermediaries such as "mom-and-pop shops" that focus on commercial property agencies and deeply cultivated communities "live a lot of nourishment."
Investigating its root causes, under the background of a "reference price" website, these real estate agencies that can buck the trend and make progress while steadily all have a common feature: to win the trust of customers with professionalism and integrity.
The above-mentioned intermediary person in charge and his peers believe that the oligopolistic market structure of the intermediary industry will not undergo substantial changes, and the market share of leading real estate intermediaries is expected to be further consolidated and increased. At the same time, some focus on certain The real estate brokerage brands that serve in subdivisions will continue to burst into lasting vitality.
Author: Wu Junjie