Intermediary customs investigation
"China News Weekly" reporter / Yang Zhijie
Published in the 1021th issue of China News Weekly on November 22, 2021
A sublease notice was posted on the glass door of a real estate store on Baihua 3rd Road, Futian District, Shenzhen. The office area of more than 20 square meters was empty. Only two real estate agents were doing nothing, browsing the computer silently, waiting for the countdown to close the store.
In the past 4 months, there have been no second-hand housing transactions in this store, only a few scattered tenant orders.
An agent told China News Weekly that he had more than a dozen colleagues a year ago, and half of this year he resigned. Some returned to their hometowns. Some switched to selling new houses, office buildings, or simply switched to other sales.
There was no transaction volume, and the monthly rent and utility bills of nearly 40,000 yuan became a heavy burden. In order to save expenses, this small local intermediary decided to merge the store with other stores.
This is not the only housing agency that has closed down.
Only on the 300-meter-long road, there were seven or eight intermediary stores and hundreds of real estate agents during the peak period, and now there are only three or four large-scale chain intermediaries left.
Baihua 3rd Road is located in the Baihua district of Shenzhen, known as the “strongest school district” in Shenzhen. It is most sensitive to changes in real estate policy and is one of the windows for observing the Shenzhen property market.
In the first nine months of this year, 642 intermediary stores in Shenzhen have closed.
As of October, the transaction volume of second-hand housing in Shenzhen has fallen for six consecutive months. In September, the transaction volume was 1,635, a record low in the past 12 years.
Similar plots were staged in Guangzhou, Dongguan, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Chengdu, Xiamen, Jinan and other cities.
China's real estate market is entering the era of stock, especially in first-tier cities, where second-hand housing has accounted for more than 70% of market transactions.
This year, the intensive regulation around second-hand housing transactions has released new signals.
Some commentators pointed out: The real estate regulation has gradually developed from the focus on newly-built commercial housing in the past to the second-hand housing regulation and control, "the second-hand housing market is becoming the main battlefield of real estate regulation."
The store closure wave is just the beginning
Wang Feng (pseudonym) is a senior real estate agent in the Baihua area of Shenzhen. During his 15 years of business, he has experienced several downturns in Shenzhen real estate-the 2008 financial crisis. In 2011, second-hand housing was transferred and taxed at the assessed price. The New Deal, the "Shenzhen Eight Articles" in 2016, and the "7·15" New Deal in 2020.
But in his view, this year's regulation is "the biggest impact on second-hand housing and real estate intermediaries in history, close to the reshuffle, and the flood has rushed over."
Before February, it was not difficult for real estate agencies to promote a business in Baihua area.
The Baihua area is located in Futian District, Shenzhen. The area is square and square, about 1 square kilometer. It is close to Huaqiangbei Commercial Street. Most of the communities were built around the most glorious millennium in Huaqiangbei.
The facilities are old, but the surrounding area gathers the Liyuan Elementary School, the prestigious Baihua Elementary School, the Experimental Elementary School and the Shenzhen Experimental Middle School, which have the best test scores in Shenzhen, as well as the three counterparts of the Shenzhen Experimental Middle School. In addition, there are 6 kindergartens, making it the “strongest school district” in Shenzhen.
The "one-stop" high-quality education combination has attracted Shenzhen parents to spend tens of millions to squeeze into these 15 garden communities.
Last year, the property market in Shenzhen was booming. Wang Feng remembers that in the most one month, 70 or 80 houses were sold in the area. At that time, there were almost no listings on the Internet. He could only search for the contact information of old customers. , Asked one by one if they wanted to sell the house.
But since February this year, the good days of Shenzhen real estate agencies have been suspended.
On February 8, the Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Housing and Urban-Rural Development issued the "Notice on Establishing a Mechanism for Publishing Reference Prices for Second-hand Housing Transaction", which announced the reference prices of 3595 communities.
The reference price is based on the online signing price of the property market in the past year, and is formed by investigating actual market transactions, as well as comprehensive analysis, evaluation, and calculation.
According to Wang Feng, director of the Shenzhen Real Estate and Urban Construction Development Research Center, 62% of the second-hand real estate prices are consistent with the online signing prices in the past year, 10% of the real estates have no transaction prices in the past year, and 27% of the market prices are seriously deviated. For reference prices, these communities that deviate from market prices are mainly from hot spots such as Nanshan, Futian, and Bao'an. The prices are inflated and there are elements of speculation.
Subsequently, Shenzhen's real estate agency websites removed most of the listing information, and when they were relisted, only the government reference price could be displayed.
Some intermediary agencies said that listings higher than the reference price can be transferred, but buyers have to sign a risk notice.
The price of houses in Baihua area deviates from the reference price by 27%.
In November last year, a 44-square-meter room in Guocheng Garden, with degrees from experimental primary and experimental high schools, was sold for 12.18 million yuan, with an average price of 276,800 yuan per square meter. The current reference price given by the government is 13.1 Ten thousand yuan/square meter.
Nantian Er Garden’s housing prices are the next best. The average price in December last year was 180,000 to 220,000 yuan per square meter, and the government reference price was 120,000 yuan per square meter.
Although the guide price of second-hand housing is not compulsory, it is the bank that uses this data as a reference data to provide a deterrent to the inflated price of second-hand housing transactions.
The agent Wang Feng explained that taking the 89 square meters of Nantian Er Garden as an example, if the owner insists on not bargaining for 200,000 yuan per square meter, the buyer can only borrow at the reference price, and the down payment will increase by 7.12 million yuan.
For second-hand houses whose prices deviated significantly from the reference price, the transaction threshold increased, and the transaction volume dropped significantly.
According to Leyoujia's statistics, from February to July 2021, the six famous school areas in Xiangmihu District, Futian District, Baihua District, Nanshan Yuehai District, Bao'an Xin'an District, and Longhua Minzhi Shenzhen Gaobei District will see substantial transaction volume in the six prestigious campuses from February to July 2021. Decline, the volume of transactions in January rose by 58% year-on-year, and from March to July, the volume of transactions fell by more than 50% year-on-year.
The transaction volume of second-hand housing in Shenzhen is also falling. In January, there were 8971 online signings. In March, the number of online signings fell to 4,869. The number of online signings in June has dropped to 3216.
This almost cut off the livelihood of the real estate agency.
According to Wang Feng, the Baihua area has recently sold 5-10 sets of houses per month, and this area has dozens of intermediary stores and more than 600 intermediaries.
In the past four months, Wang Feng has only sold one house, relying on customer introduction resources accumulated over the years.
"Newcomers or intermediaries who have been in the business for three or four years will definitely not survive. Many people quit their jobs to deliver couriers, run Didi, or sell insurance."
The Baihua area where Baihua Primary School is located in Futian District, Shenzhen is the “strongest school district” in Shenzhen. The housing price of a small apartment in a residential area exceeds 300,000 yuan per square meter when it is the highest among the 15 garden communities.
The reference price of second-hand housing transactions in Shenzhen in 2021 and the proposed school district policy will have a greater impact on second-hand housing transactions in the area.
Photographer/Reporter Yang Zhijie
Wang Feng found that the first to close around were the franchise stores of the Shell and other platforms, such as Deyou and Nuojia. The franchise stores not only have to bear the rent and utility bills, but also pay the platform an initial fee of 30,000 to 40,000 yuan.
"China News Weekly" visited Shenzhen's Nanshan District, Futian and other districts, and many Nuojia and Deyou stores were locked and closed or sublet.
The next ones that went bankrupt most were some small individual intermediaries who also needed to be responsible for their own profits and losses, but they were small in scale and convenient for transformation.
Zhang Yuan is the secretary-general of the Shenzhen Real Estate Intermediary Association (hereinafter referred to as the "Shenzhen Real Estate Association"). In her opinion, the depth and length of regulation of second-hand housing in Shenzhen this year has never been seen in history.
The Shenzhen Real Estate Association will conduct surveys on the city’s intermediaries every once in a while. As of September 30, Shenzhen had closed 642 stores, accounting for 15.1% of the total questionnaire survey. There were about 41,000 effective real-name registered intermediaries, compared with this year. The peak decreased by more than 6,000 people, a decrease of 14.2% compared with the same period last year.
As China's largest real estate transaction service platform, Shell Search is also difficult to withstand the impact of the market downturn.
On October 11, all the members of the Shanghai Seashell Research and Development team were optimized, and its public response was that “the industry environment has undergone major changes, and the company adjusted some of its businesses in Shanghai based on this.”
The veteran real estate agency Zhongyuan Real Estate issued an internal document stating, “Affected by the continued downturn in the market, in order to retain core resources through the cold winter, the group decided to adjust the scale and structure of the mainland business. Reach the balance of payments in the fourth quarter.” The document also pointed out that seven branches in Hefei, Zhengzhou, Jinan, Nanchang, Harbin, Nanjing, and Ningbo need to significantly reduce their operating scales.
According to reports, Shanghai Centaline Property is requesting employees to strive for performance and "self-help" through salary cuts and dismissal.
Zhang Dawei pointed out that these layoffs are just the tip of the iceberg. The real market layoffs began in July. The third quarter was the worst because of the "quick freezing" of second-hand housing transactions.
"The current second-hand housing transaction market has a labor surplus." Zhang Dawei told China News Weekly. Taking Shenzhen as an example, the second-hand housing transaction volume corresponding to the number of intermediary stores should be more than 6000 sets per month. The monthly transaction is less than 2,000 sets.
Stores can still last for one or two months, but will not last for three or four months, and the trend of closing stores is just beginning.
Second-hand housing pricing rules have changed
Different from the price limit of new houses, second-hand houses are free transactions between owners and buyers. In the past, regulators rarely directly supervised their transaction prices. Why did they intervene directly this year?
In fact, Shenzhen has introduced a second-hand housing reference price, which has been brewing for a long time.
The Securities Times reported that in January 2020, Shenzhen had already started research on the establishment of a system for guiding prices for second-hand housing, with the purpose of stabilizing the price of second-hand housing and stabilizing the expectations of the Shenzhen commercial housing market.
Prior to this, the too "friendly" second-hand housing transaction policy blew a bubble.
In November 2019, Shenzhen adjusted its luxury housing tax policy. A large number of second-hand housing transaction taxes were reduced, which stimulated transactions. Second-hand housing prices rose. There was even a phenomenon that owners collectively bid up housing prices.
In December 2019, the owner group management team of the Huayuan Community in Fenghuangli, COFCO, Baoan District, Shenzhen released the "Send to All Owners in Fenghuangli" on the WeChat group, in the name of "the first shot of asset protection", so that all owners collectively increased Price, but also to create the phenomenon of bamboo shoots.
The screenshot went viral on the Internet. Subsequently, the Baoan District Housing and Urban-rural Development Bureau notified the incident and removed the shells to find all second-hand housing in the community.
In 2020, housing demand suppressed by the epidemic began to release, and the second-hand housing market in Shenzhen quickly picked up.
The number of online signings in March was 6,375, and the number soared to 17,388 in April, and it exceeded 20,000 in July, setting a record high in the number of monthly online signings.
Although affected by the "7.15" policy, the transaction volume fell briefly in July and August, but as the market gradually adapted to the policy, the number of online signings in December exceeded 10,000 sets again.
Following this, second-hand housing prices have risen to historical highs.
An intermediary in the Binhai Window Community in Nanshan District, Shenzhen, described to China News Weekly that in the second half of last year, housing prices in the community continued to rise, and prices were raised once a month.
The collective bidding behavior of hot real estate owners has reappeared.
By the end of the year, people found that housing prices in Shenzhen had gone crazy in the past year, with an increase of 31%, and even 50% in individual areas.
Previously, the Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Housing and Urban-Rural Development has stated that in accordance with the requirements of the long-term mechanism of macro-control, the annual growth rate of second-hand house prices will not exceed 5%.
The price of second-hand housing has soared, but on the other hand, new houses have encountered government price restrictions, and the price of second-hand housing is upside down.
In October last year, the average price of second-hand houses in Shenzhen was 16,000 yuan per square meter higher than that of new houses.
According to media reports, the average price of the first phase of the China Resources City Runxi project is about 132,000 yuan per square meter, while the surrounding second-hand housing prices are nearly 50,000 yuan higher. "If you win a contract for a new house of 100 square meters, you can earn 5 million Yuan".
Not only in Shenzhen, but also in first-tier cities and hot second-tier cities, the second-hand housing market has gradually become the subject of transactions.
Under the "scissors gap" between the prices of new and second-hand houses, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Nanjing, Ningbo, Chengdu, Xi'an and other cities have seen the phenomenon of "10,000 people shaking".
"Under this circumstance, upgrading the regulation of second-hand housing has become a necessity in the market." Zhang Dawei said.
On February 8, Shenzhen took the lead in introducing second-hand housing reference prices in China. Ten cities including Ningbo, Sanya, Xi'an, Shaoxing, Wuxi, Dongguan, Jinhua, Shaoxing, Guangzhou, and Hefei followed suit, and banks in many places used the reference price as a reference for lending.
The reference price of second-hand housing is a potent medicine.
According to Wang Feng, director of the Shenzhen Real Estate and Urban Construction Development Research Center, the price of second-hand housing in the market had fluctuated greatly before, and there were many bubbles, which misled the expectations of home buyers.
The issuance of the guide price is conducive to solving the problem of the inversion of first and second-hand prices, and at the same time guiding commercial banks to issue loans, reduce leverage, and prevent financial risks.
Zhang Yuan noticed that before the introduction of the second-hand housing reference price, the second-hand housing market in Shenzhen presented a strange circle: on the one hand, the price of second-hand housing was inflated. The owners, some websites, and the media kept raising prices, but on the other hand, the bottom of the market was really high. The demand side has been unable to keep up with the rising trend of housing prices.
At that time, several leading intermediary companies in Shenzhen also realized that "housing prices continue to rise, and self-media continues to speculate, and the future transaction volume will continue to be overdrawn, and the intermediary industry will not survive."
After the introduction of the reference prices for second-hand housing in many governments, high-priced orders were required to be removed from the shelves and the online reference prices were listed, which improved the passive position of buyers to a certain extent and cooled down the expectations of owners.
"After having the reference price, many buyers will definitely look at the reference price. They have an expectation in their hearts that the seller’s price is too high and they can not buy or negotiate with the seller. This was not possible in the past. The previous price was determined by the intermediary and the owner. Master, housing prices in a district are easy to be hyped up.” Li Yujia told China News Weekly that if sellers insist on not cutting prices, banks will lend based on the reference price, and the buyer’s down payment pressure will increase. Even in areas below the reference price, there is no market for high-priced houses, and price reductions will be considered in the future.
In mid-September, the agent Wang Feng finally "opened" after nearly three months and sold a house.
This house has risen to around 15 million yuan in 2020, and the transaction price in September has dropped to 11.8 million yuan, which is lower than the current second-hand housing reference price of 12.8 million yuan.
But this kind of situation is hard to come by. Under the guide price, the game between sellers and buyers has become longer and more secretive.
In mid-October, "China News Weekly" visited Shenzhen Nanshan, Futian and other hot communities and found that only a few sellers were willing to drastically cut prices at the guide price.
"Currently, the prices of the houses with reduced prices are mostly due to the impact of the epidemic on their businesses and the urgent need for cash flow. More people still hang up at the original prices and do not rush to sell them. Generally, those who buy are just in need, in order to get married or go to school for their children. The rest are still watching." Wang Feng said.
However, the trend of second-hand housing price cuts in Shenzhen and even first-tier cities has begun.
According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the sales price of second-hand housing in first-tier cities has changed from an increase of 0.2% last month to a decrease of 0.4%. Among them, Shenzhen decreased by 0.5%, and the rate of decline expanded 0.1% from the previous month.
"Although large-scale price reductions have not yet begun, sellers are still unwilling to reduce prices, as long as they stick to it, there is no problem. Everyone's expectations of housing prices are not that they can achieve their goals in the short term. The purpose of government reforms is to slowly return housing prices to rational prices." Li Yujia said.
Will suspension of loans become the norm?
Since the beginning of this year, Ningbo, Sanya, Xi'an, Shaoxing, Wuxi, Dongguan, Jinhua, Shaoxing, Guangzhou, Hefei and other cities have successively introduced second-hand housing guidance prices. Most city bank mortgages are linked to the guidance price.
This means that the credit policy for second-hand housing transactions has been substantially tightened.
In July, Shanghai launched a second-hand housing "checked pricing". If the listing price is not verified, intermediary platforms and institutions are not allowed to release the housing information.
In early August, Shanghai increased its regulation on second-hand housing. Banks reviewed the amount of second-hand housing loans and implemented the principle of “three prices are low”. That is, banks will compare the three prices based on the contract price, the tax-related evaluation price, and the bank’s evaluation price. Approve the loan amount for second-hand housing at the lowest price.
Experts explained that in order to obtain higher leverage, some speculators used "yin and yang contracts" to increase housing prices and get more loans.
Zhang Bo, Dean of 58 Anju Guest House Property Research Institute, once analyzed that the principle of “low three prices” can help second-hand housing prices increase too quickly, prevent illegal capital flow to real estate, and improve tax fairness.
To apply for a mortgage loan for the purchase of a house, a house purchaser needs to submit a written loan application to the bank. The bank will evaluate it through a third-party appraisal agency, then approve the loan ratio based on the result of the appraisal, and finally release the loan.
Generally speaking, the entire cycle is 1 to 2 months.
In late June of this year, banks in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Zhengzhou, Xi'an, Wuhan, Nanjing, Ningbo, Chongqing, Hefei and other cities reported that the application conditions for second-hand housing loans have been tightened and the loan cycle has been extended.
In June, data from 72 cities monitored by the Shell Research Institute showed that from the perspective of the loan cycle, the average mortgage loan cycle was 50 days, which was another 2 days longer than the previous month. Guangzhou was 14 days to 98 days longer than last month. Foshan, Dongguan, The lending cycle of cities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area such as Zhongshan and Huizhou has also been basically extended to more than 100 days.
In Zhang Dawei's view, the tightening of second-hand housing credit in many places, the suspension of bank orders and the prolonged lending cycle have directly affected the sharp cooling of the second-hand housing market in first-tier cities and some second-tier hot spots.
In September, only 9,800 second-hand houses were sold in Shanghai, a record low this year.
Guangzhou second-hand housing network signed 6921 sets, the lowest in the same period in the past four years.
In the 11 key cities monitored by the Shanghai E-House Real Estate Research Institute, the transaction volume of second-hand housing in September fell by 45.5% year-on-year, almost cut in half.
"From my many years of experience, two months is the limit for real estate loans, especially second-hand housing loans. If more than two months, house prices will definitely fall. The main reason for this year is that the number of households released by the central bank in the first half of this year The year-on-year growth of long-term loans is staggering, and the second-hand housing market will see a cliff-like change when the third quarter is cut off by a cliff." Zhang Dawei told China News Weekly.
At the end of last year, “in order to prevent the potential systemic financial risks caused by the excessive concentration of real estate loans in the financial system”, the Central Bank and the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission jointly issued the “Notice on Establishing the Real Estate Loan Concentration Management System of Banking Financial Institutions”, dividing different real estate Loan concentration, the "two red lines" are proposed, namely, for large Chinese banks, the upper limit of the proportion of real estate loans is 40%, the upper limit of the proportion of personal housing loans is 32.5%, and the upper limit of medium-sized Chinese banks is 27.5% and 20, respectively. %.
In April, the government upgraded the supervision of housing funds and jointly investigated the illegal flow of loans for business purposes into real estate.
"Now some real estate speculators have a hard time. In the past, most of their real estate speculators were borrowed from banks. After the house price rose, they mortgaged the house to the bank to obtain more funds to purchase the next house." Guangzhou Mortgage Loan Researcher Zheng Dayuan told China News Weekly that buyers who just need buyers will definitely be affected, but the real purpose of regulation is not to stop second-hand housing transactions, but to curb the excessive growth of housing prices. “In the long run, this is Protect just-needed users".
On October 15, in response to the shortage of personal mortgage loans in some areas, Zou Lan, Director of the Financial Markets Department of the Central Bank, responded that in the first three quarters of this year, the amount of personal housing loans remained stable, basically matching the amount of commercial residential sales during the same period.
Among them, housing prices in a few cities have risen too fast, and personal housing loans are subject to some constraints, but the rate of housing price increases has been suppressed.
After housing prices in a few cities stabilize, the supply-demand relationship of housing loans in these cities will return to normal.
On October 21, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission stated that it is necessary to support first-home buyers in terms of loan down payment ratio and interest rate to ensure the credit needs of the just-needed group.
Zheng Dayuan noticed that the previous lending cycle of some banks in Guangzhou was more than half a year, and it has accelerated since November. Banks that originally stopped taking orders have also begun to take orders again, but it is not obvious as a whole.
"Why has there been a slight relaxation recently? One of the main reasons is that many well-known real estate companies in China have exploded. The current regulation is slightly relaxed, hoping to restore confidence in the real estate industry and let everyone revitalize the transaction volume." But from the perspective of future trends Now, Zheng Dayuan believes that for a relatively long period of time, "no speculation in housing and housing" is still an unshakable policy.
Is "disintermediation" coming?
Real estate intermediary practitioners are the most sensitive group to the market. Many of them feel vaguely that many game rules of stock housing are changing.
At the end of June, the Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Housing and Urban-Rural Development launched a second-hand housing trading platform, but it was quickly removed after a few hours.
In August, Hangzhou launched a second-hand housing transaction supervision service platform, and launched the function of "personal independent listing of housing", providing homeowners with the platform to list housing on their own, directly communicating with potential buyers, breaking the mode of intermediary transactions. It has triggered a wave of public opinion on the "disintermediation" of second-hand housing transactions.
Subsequently, Shell's share price fell 19.47% for two consecutive trading days, and the market value evaporated by US$4.609 billion, or about 29.8 billion yuan.
Li Yujia believes that the state has established a full-process supervision system for new houses. From land transfer to planning and construction, to start, pre-sale, completion and delivery, this set of supervision systems basically has no loopholes.
However, in the management of second-hand housing, it has been allowed to grow wildly for a long time, and the real listed price is not even known.
In his view, “the problems of second-hand housing transactions are mainly chaotic basic order, serious information asymmetry, high transaction costs, and loss of people’s livelihood and welfare. The entire industry is still in a relatively rough stage, and the operating rules are even in place. The abduction still exists."
In his view, the official establishment of a second-hand housing trading platform is not to eliminate intermediaries, but to provide a starting point for the management of second-hand housing transactions, so as to supervise the price system and eliminate information asymmetry.
This is the first step. It is necessary to publicize the real estate information first, and the transaction agent can continue to complete it through an intermediary.
Zhang Yuan told China News Weekly that behind the short-lived second-hand housing trading platform in Shenzhen, there was actually a long-term plan.
As early as 2017, the government and industry have begun to discuss the need for such a platform to make all information and processes open and transparent.
With the maturity of technology and laws and regulations, conditions are now available.
"Many of our members have expressed a pessimistic sentiment, believing that the government is cracking down on intermediaries and disintermediating."
Zhang Yuan also noticed that this year's wave of store closures is different from the past due to the transmission of emotions: in the past wave of intermediary closures, most of the companies took the initiative to make adjustments due to poor management. When the market recovers, they will soon make a comeback.
But this time, at least in Shenzhen's real estate companies, very senior practitioners have voluntarily left the industry.
"Shenzhen does not use administrative resources to intervene in the market economy, so that the cost and effect are low, but it must form a guide to build a platform that is as open as possible." Zhang Yuan believes that this platform will not be able to solve it all at once when it is launched in the future. All the problems of the intermediary industry still need to be continuously optimized. "This is a process of mutual growth."
But the current impact and shuffling are unavoidable.
In the view of Zhang Yuan and many industry veterans, it means that "the era of easy money in the real estate intermediary industry has passed."
In 1998, China's first legally compliant real estate brokerage company was established.
By 2020, the transaction volume of China's real estate brokerage business will be approximately 11.5 trillion yuan, and the market penetration rate will be approximately 49.6%.
"This industry seems to be developing very fast. The scale of the company and the service model are changing rapidly. Now it is on the Internet Express, but the essence has not changed. It is lying in the upward cycle of the Chinese real estate market and engaged in a relatively simple Work." Zhang Yuan told China News Weekly, but nowadays, real estate agencies need to examine their service value.
This was originally a slow transition process, but this year's intensive regulation of second-hand housing has accelerated the reshuffle.
The Shenzhen Real Estate Association pointed out that the transaction volume has fallen off a cliff and the intermediary’s difficulty in placing orders has increased. More and more people have discovered that the past effective methods of placing orders, such as concealing information and raising the psychological expectations of buying a house, were in the market in the past. When expectations are good, people still pay for this operation, but now the market is not expected to do so well. Regardless of whether it is a standardized or non-standard approach, it will not work.
The intermediaries were lost and could not see the future, so they chose to leave.
Zhang Yuan estimates that after this wave of resignations, someone who returns in the future may find that the industry has undergone reforms.
"This is not whitewashing, nor improvement, but a thorough separation from the past."
China News Weekly, Issue 42 of 2021
Statement: The publication of the "China News Weekly" manuscript is authorized in writing