[Market View] Long-term rental apartments need to retain trust

　　A leading company in the long-term rental apartment market has recently been caught in a "rent increase storm".

Many tenants in Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan and other places reported to the media that their rent contracts are about to expire, and the rent prices for renewals have increased by more than 10%.

On some social media and complaint platforms, some tenants posted that their rents had risen by 27%, "simply robbing money".

　　On June 7, the long-term rental apartment company responded that the overall rent in the second quarter was stable, and the average increase in renewals was less than 3%.

As for the increase of more than 10% reported by tenants, the main reason may be that most of the landlord's entrustment agreements stipulate that the rent will increase by a certain rate year by year, resulting in an increase that exceeds the average level.

The tenants disagreed with this statement.

　　And the landlord who was "thrown out" also has his own "grievances".

Some landlords said that the annual increase in rent in the entrustment agreement generally does not exceed 3%.

There are also many landlords who say that they have not increased rents, but have been asked to reduce rents due to "epidemic reasons".

　　While increasing rents for tenants, while asking landlords to cut prices on the grounds of "bad market conditions", this operation of long-term rental apartments is considered to be "take-all" for both tenants and landlords, and "it's getting more and more ugly" .

　　It is worth noting that this is not the first time that the long-term rental apartment company has been involved in public opinion turmoil.

Previously, it was also exposed to the problem of rent increases when the epidemic first broke out in 2020, and caused a lot of public opinion due to the excessive formaldehyde in the rental house, hidden cameras, and the connection of reclaimed water to tap water.

　　What happened to this leading company in the long-term rental apartment market?

　　When the long-term rental apartment company was founded, there were many industry pain points in the huge domestic housing rental market, such as opaque information between landlords and tenants, and black intermediaries.

　　The long-term rental apartment company focuses on the "long-term rental" model of housing rental products and services, and has innovated its business model: no intermediary fee is charged, it first collects the house from the owner, and then rents it out to the tenant after unified decoration. The profit mainly comes from the rent difference after large-scale replication.

At the same time, it charges service fees and performs corresponding maintenance, cleaning and other services during the lease period.

　　In June 2016, the long-term rental apartment company became a leading company in the industry.

Since then, it has made great strides, covering 10 major cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, etc., not only gaining millions of tenants and hundreds of thousands of owners, but also gaining popularity in the capital market.

Driven by this, a series of long-term rental apartment enterprises such as Danke and Qingke have also ushered in rapid development.

　　However, since 2018, the field of long-term rental apartment enterprises has repeatedly exploded.

Some long-term rental apartment brands have broken capital chains due to rapid expansion or poor management.

According to Tianyancha data, about 17.4% of the long-term rental apartments in the country have experienced abnormal operation.

At present, in the long-term rental apartment industry, losses are a common phenomenon.

Under the influence of the epidemic, it has made the industry "worse".

　　The challenges faced by the leading enterprises of long-term rental apartments are also not small. In the face of revenue pressure, there is a "simple and rude" operation to solve the problem by increasing the rent.

In addition, the once proud service model has also begun to be criticized repeatedly.

Some tenants questioned that with the increase in rent, the service fee also increased, but the service level has declined.

In the long run, these will drain the trust of both tenants and landlords.

　　Some landlords said that the house has been taken care of by leading long-term rental apartment companies for more than ten years, and that they are their first customers.

Not long ago, in the process of termination of the contract, I could not feel any "human touch" for the owner.

Between the loss of tenants and landlords, long-term rental apartments should seriously think about how to retain the trust of customers.