Chinanews client, Beijing, October 17th (Peng Jingru) "The company's financial affairs in Hangzhou Eggshell Apartments went bankrupt, and the company went bankrupt. Please contact the company to avoid the biggest loss." Recently, Weibo netizens posted a circle of friends. Prompt to make Eggshell Apartments hit hot searches.
The official Weibo of Eggshell Apartments suspected to respond to the incident on the afternoon of the 14th, saying that it should not be trusted by the rumors, but the Weibo was quickly re-edited and the response part of the copy was deleted.
Subsequently, Eggshell Apartments formally responded that some of the partners had recently taken excessive actions and spread false statements, videos, and pictures related to "eggshell running off and closing down" due to commercial disputes with the company. The company has reported to the police.
Currently, the operating activities of Eggshell Apartments are all normal.
The screenshot is from the official Weibo of Eggshell Apartment.
In the above response, some netizens left a message on Weibo: "Xiaobian, don't get your salary later." "Keep on going. Good companies will protect them together. Tenants who have difficulties in the extension of cashback will be sympathetic, and don't really disappear. "
Many tenants reported that the rental house was disconnected from the Internet for many days, and the housekeeper could not be contacted. They reported that there was no response to the problem and the cleaning service was gone.
Some netizens said: "It feels like real..." "As long as there is such a rumor, it will be soon."
CEO is investigated, performance lights up red
Don't blame the tenants for their care, 2020 is indeed an eventful year for Eggshell Apartments.
In January of this year, a suspected eggshell apartment employee said in Maimai that the eggshell apartment owed its employees' wages, and the wages in January were paid in March, and the wages in February were paid in accordance with the minimum wage standard.
In addition, the eggshell apartment was also exposed to "eat at both ends" behavior.
At that time, the landlord of the eggshell apartment in many places said that the apartment requires the landlord to be rent-free for one month.
At the same time, tenants renting a house from Eggshell Apartments cannot reduce or exempt rents. Both parties expressed dissatisfaction with the unilateral behavior of "the landlord is rent-free and the tenant pays the rent".
This incident even alarmed the Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Housing and Urban-rural Development, which interviewed the relevant person in charge of Shenzhen Eggshell Apartment and closely followed the progress of the incident.
Data map: A guy shows the house he found through the local rental platform.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Wang Gang
Although other long-term rental apartments have also been questioned about "eat at both ends" and even accused of raising prices during the epidemic, the news that the company's CEO was investigated has brought even worse effects on Eggshell Apartments.
On June 18, Eggshell Apartments disclosed a personnel change announcement: the company's CEO Gao Jing was involved in an investigation. The board of directors has appointed the company's co-founder, director and president Cui Yan as interim CEO, and the appointment will take effect immediately.
According to the announcement, Gao Jing's investigation is mainly about his commercial investment before he founded Eggshell Apartment, but there is no clear answer because of which company's commercial investment was investigated.
Although Eggshell Apartment stated that Gao Jing’s investigation was not related to the company, and neither the company nor any of its other directors or senior executives received any notices, inquiries or claims that may be related to such investigations, but this does not This means that the eggshell can be completely out of the picture.
The famous economist Song Qinghui believes that the founder is the soul of the company. As the founder of Eggshell Apartment, Gao Jing's investigation is bound to have a huge negative impact on the company.
If Gao Jing is punished due to the above investigation, the senior management of Eggshell Apartments is likely to undergo a personnel change and a major reshuffle, which may have a certain impact on the company's business strategic direction.
The performance of Eggshell Apartments is indeed not optimistic.
Flush data shows that from 2017 to 2019, the net profit of Eggshell Apartments was -272 million yuan, -1.37 billion yuan, and -3.437 billion yuan.
According to Eggshell Apartment’s first financial report after its listing in June, in the first quarter of 2020, the company achieved operating income of 1.94 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 62.48%, and realized a net profit of 1.234 billion yuan. The net profit of the same period last year was 816 million yuan, a loss. The surface is further expanded.
Constant complaints, frequent thunderstorms for long-term rental apartments
Not only the "pot" of eggshell apartments, the phenomenon of repeated complaints and frequent "thunders" in long-term rental apartments has also made consumers "stunned."
The intermediary took the client directly to see the house without any notification of the appointment; secretly defaulted on the owner’s utility bills, gas bills, and property management fees; house quality problems include excessive formaldehyde, house leaks, and insufficient heating; unfair terms and liquidated damages High; poor service experience, and numerous complaints from butlers threatening tenants.
Among them, the rent loan issue has attracted the most attention and has been investigated by relevant departments many times.
"Rental loan" means that the tenant signs a loan contract with a financial institution cooperating with a long-term rental apartment enterprise; the financial institution pays the full-year rent to the long-term rental apartment enterprise on behalf of the tenant, and the tenant repays the rental loan in installments to the financial institution.
Data map.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Zhang Yun
Long-term rental apartment companies can thus obtain long-term rents from financial institutions in advance, accumulate capital pools, and form financial leverage for scale expansion and absorbing new housing.
"Operating agencies use the rent recovered in advance to expand their scale or operations. Once the leasing market is sluggish or when there are fewer new tenants, the agency will face funding problems." said Wang Xiaoqiang, an analyst at the Zhuge Housing Data Research Center.
The Black Cat complaint platform shows that the largest number of complaints in the real estate and home furnishing sector is "long-term rental apartments."
For example, after a certain leasing platform ran away, the number of complaints increased. Many tenants paid tens of thousands of yuan in rent, and were driven out by the landlord within a few days. This situation abounds in the field of long-term rental apartments. Road, tenants are also facing a difficult situation of rights protection.
"Since the outbreak of the epidemic, the number of long-term rental apartment complaints has experienced a sharp increase for a period of time. However, as the epidemic has stabilized, the number of complaints has been showing a downward trend since February. The number of complaints has increased in August, mainly in Hangzhou, Long-term rental apartments in Shanghai and other places such as Youke, Chaoke, and Lanyue have successively suffered accidents.” The above-mentioned complaint platform data shows.
On August 27th, a tenant in Hangzhou said that the intermediary ran away with the money just after a friend paid more than 20,000 yuan in rent in a long-term apartment.
On August 29, another long-term rental apartment nest guest in Hangzhou "run the road."
At the same time, the office of Shanghai Lanyue Enterprise Management Consulting Co., Ltd. (namely Lanyue Apartment) in Pudong was also empty.
In Chengdu, several charter companies, such as Chaoke Yujia and Lianhezhijia, are also suspected of taking the rent away.
According to media reports, only two companies, Chaoke Yujia and Lianhezhijia, had nearly 20,000 victims of tenants, and the amount involved was about 300 million yuan.
In addition, at least the founders or principals of many housing leasing companies, including Shixiang, Haima, etc., have lost contact, affecting many provinces and cities such as Southwest, South China, and East China, involving tens of thousands of houses. Landlords and tenants.
High entry, low exit, fragile business model
Faced with the phenomenon of long-term rental apartments, relevant real estate associations in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Haikou, Hefei, Chengdu and other places have issued risk warnings on the housing rental market.
In addition to issuing risk warnings, Chengdu Real Estate Brokers Association also launched a special investigation of housing leasing companies.
"These companies use the high-risk business model of'high-in-low-out, long-income and short-payments' in the name of housing leasing to carry out fraudulent activities, which eventually led to the failure of the landlord to collect the rent and the rental of rooms and money." Guangzhou Real Estate Leasing Association said, Choose leasing companies carefully.
Previously, there was a video on Weibo showing that the property door of a long-term rental apartment platform in Hangzhou was locked.
Yan Yuejin, a well-known real estate analyst, believes that the role of listed companies will generally not be said to have gone out of business in response to this incident where the eggshell apartment was rumored to run away.
"However, similar speculation also shows that the long-term rental apartment market is indeed fragile, and also shows that the business stability of enterprises is facing a lot of uncertainty."
"Frequent incidents in long-term rental apartments indicate that companies are operating with high leverage, but their regular operating income or performance is not good." Yan Yuejin said that the main problem is that houses are under trusteeship. Whether similar trusteeship needs to be more standardized and how to reduce long-term rental apartment companies Issues such as cost need to be studied.
"The problem of long-term rental apartments is mainly due to its fragile business model, focusing on leveraged business models, ignoring its own business level, and not starting from serving customers." Wang Xiaoqian analyzed that the rental market was active this year under the impact of the epidemic. The decline in the rental market and the decline in both volume and prices have increased the financial pressure on long-term rental apartment agencies.
"The long-term rental apartment industry is still in the early stage of development in China, and the profit model is not yet clear. A large amount of cost is required in the early stage. The domestic rental rate of return is low, and the industry has a long return period. Institutions cannot rush for quick success and instant profit. "Wang Xiaoqiang said.
(Finish)