This industry needs long-termism.

In recent years, long-term rental apartments have frequently appeared in the public eye. It is the darling of capital when it is beautiful, but after the wind, it is a mess.

The industry has begun to reflect, perhaps long-term rental apartments should not be a so-called outlet. A large number of small and medium-sized practitioners who followed the trend did not build on itLizheng Real awareness: operating long-term rental apartments It is more difficult than expected. It is neither a highly profitable industry nor is it difficult to pursue short-term profit returns. As a livelihood industry, long-term rental apartments and thousands of 10,000 rents are closely related to the customer and the landlord, even if it is an entrepreneurial business caused by objective reasons The impact of failure is much greater than that of ordinary projects.

But in any case, the value of long-term rental apartments has not been shaken. With the risks under control, it is still the living product closest to the lifestyle of young people. Only after seeing the risks clearly, the practitioners finally began to understand that they must use a calmer mindset and a longer-term perspective to penetrate into operations.

“The general direction of China’s leasing industry will not change, because the needs of tenants and landlords have not changed. After some unhealthy factors and participants are removed from the big wave, the industry will definitely become more rational.” Ziru CEO Xiong Linxiang said.

ZiRuo is China’s first long-term rental apartment operated by institutions, and it has been established for exactly 9 years. It can be said that it has fully witnessed the growth of the industry from 0-1. How did long-term rental apartments arise? What have you experienced over the years? Where will you go in the future? Maybe we can find some answers from this company.

Demand has spawned “outlets”

The proportion of urban renters has been increasing in recent years. However, the renting history of urban youth is almost a repeated “history of blood and tears”. It is not easy to find a satisfactory house. It is not only possible to meet strange roommates, but also to fight against intermediaries and landlords.

Ziru originally founded the company for a very “simple” reason, which is to use innovative solutions to enhance the user’s rental experience. And over the years, Xiong Lin found that young people’s demand for renting houses is changing.

Users began to pay more attention to design style, and even began to require independent living. Due to the accelerated pace of work, young people are accustomed to choosing rental products with supporting services such as maintenance and cleaning. Tenants have higher and higher expectations for technology. In the past ten years, China has been deeply changed by Internet technology, and so is renting. Today, renting can be operated like booking a hotel.

Behind these changes in demand, they all reflect that young people are pursuing a “lighter” lifestyle-more flexible and free, and long-term rental apartments are the residential products that best match this lifestyle. Long-term rental apartments are characterized by higher quality and standardization of products and services, real housing information, relatively stable pricing, and professional butler service models that are also popular among young people.

Since 2014, major hotel groups, developers, real estate brokerage companies, and start-up companies have begun to flood the industry. In just a few years, there have been thousands of long-term rental apartment brands of all sizes.

What kind of experience is it like to go from obscurity to being pushed to the wind on the track where you are? Freedom feels deeply about this.

“I have my own views on competition for a long time. Competition in any industry is not a bad thing, because competition can allow consumers to obtain better products and services, and it can also make companies more humble and enterprising. To create greater value.” Xiong Linxiang said,Competition is not a problem, but if you forget your original intentions during the entrepreneurial process, it will be difficult to maintain a good attitude towards competition.

The word “early heart” sounds a bit imaginary, but it determines the temperament of a company to a large extent, but in the temptation and competition, maintaining the original heart is not an easy task.

On the first anniversary of its founding, Ziru put forward a sentence: Believe in time and try to believe that this is a long-term business. On the occasion of the 9th anniversary of the present, when the team resumed the market, they summarized a new slogan about the original intention: “The calendar is as new as the beginning.”

“In the process of competition, if you have to say the most important factor, then I think it is the long-term mentality. Do you regard this industry as a long-term career? Is it treated with a long-term attitude? In everything we do, including every house (product) delivered and every service provided, are we using the concept of long-term return to calculate today’s investment in technology, quality, and even urban community construction? I think this It’s the core difference.” Xiong Lin said.

Under the long-term mentality, in the past few years, Freedom has not paid too much attention to short-term and partial competition patterns in the market, and has focused more on customers and the “essence of industry management”.

From the results, adhering to the long-term doctrine has also given positive feedback to the company-Ziru has always maintained its leading position and currently manages more than 1 million houses, with 500,000 owners and 1.5 million tenants. , There are more than 30,000 service providers. Regardless of whether the industry is in the forefront or experiencing storms, prudent is the key word that Ziru always insists on.

Trusted “shelf life”

In 2019, Qingke ApartmentEggshell Apartments have been listed in the United States one after another. On the other hand, the industry has undergone a reshuffle, and there have been many mergers and acquisitions, but there are still a large number of small and medium-sized apartments that have not been taken over. The sudden outbreak of the epidemic in 2020 has put the industry under more tests, with frequent occurrences of “thunderstorms”, and long-term rental apartments have completely returned to the cooling-off period.

Long-term rental apartments are an asset-heavy “C2B2C” model, which first collects the house from the owner in the form of charter rent, and then collects rent premiums on the tenant side by providing quality products and standardized services.

About this model, Xiong Lin put forward a point very early: This may be an industry with relatively low entry barriers, but it has high requirements for operation and management capabilities, and needs to cross several barriers such as scale, quality, service, and O2O. .

The huge upfront investment determines that long-term apartment rental is not a very profitable industry, and companies need to take longer to achieve profitability. Renting involves continuing operations, and signing a contract is only the beginning of the service. This requires that long-term rental apartments can only pursue long-term customer value returns, and only after reaching a certain scale, the profitability can be continuously improved by optimizing the operation model.

In the past few years, the number of small and medium-sized practitioners is gradually decreasing, and the long-term rental apartments that are still clenching their teeth are affected by the epidemic, making it more difficult to operate, and even facing the situation of cash flow rupture-this is also a long-term rental apartment” “Thunderstorm” is an important reason.

The “thunderstorms” of long-term rental apartments have caused greater social problems: the owners want to get the rent back, and the tenants are worried about being evicted. The conflict between the victims of the two parties has further intensified. In this transitional period of industry development, users have increasingly distrusted long-term rental apartments.

When renting a house, users began to pay attention to choosing more powerful long-term rental apartments, and even became more mindful. Before looking for a house, they would check the background and operation of the apartment. According to the survey data of the “2020 China Youth Rental Life Blue Book”, 56% of urban tenants pay more attention to “large and good” long-term rental agencies.

Regardless of the industry, when an innovative model emerges, “getting trust”It is a very important and difficult thing.

In the early stages of the establishment of Ziruo, in order to gain the trust of tenants, the team had its own consideration in product design. For example, in the selection of furniture and home appliances, the initial team chose to buy big brands and now choose more environmentally friendly panels. Ziruo also launched “three days of dissatisfaction with zero penalty for rent exchange”, maintenance “home visit within two hours of the 5th ring road”, “7×9 hour service”, etc., trying to win more customers’ trust through product improvement and service commitments .

However, continuous trust cannot be established through loud slogans and promises, or a few major events. It comes from the daily routine. Especially in residential life, all kinds of imaginable and unexpected things emerge in an endless stream, and the slightest decision-making mistake of a company may have an impact on user trust and brand image.

During this year’s epidemic, Ziru felt more profound about it.

The importance of epidemic prevention and control itself is extremely high, and no mistakes are allowed. In particular, for a head-to-head rental agency like Ziruo, it is very difficult to prevent the epidemic due to the large scale of tenants and owners.

During this process, freely invest in community work and help the community to register the entry and exit personnel; when users are inconvenient in entering and exiting, employees are responsible for delivering water, delivering food, and shopping; at the same time, Ziruo makes some rent for users The policy of reduction and exemption has paid quite a lot of costs within an affordable range.

Xiong Lin admitted that the team underestimated the impact of the epidemic on the actual situation at the beginning, so “some services are not so thoughtful”. During this period, there were service delays, and even in some extreme cases, some butler services were not as expected. When it had to optimize the housing operation in some areas, the team went to discuss with the owners in a nervous mood.

“The company has been nine years now, and it will be in double digits soon. There are a lot of emotions that we did not expect when we were in this industry in the early days. Because many things will only be felt when we encounter extreme situations.” Said. 2020 is a special year. The biggest idea of ​​the team now is to “treasure” the things done by users and owners who have given support and understanding since the 9th anniversary, and always remind ourselves that we are on the way to the 10th anniversary and beyond. When you go, don’t forget why you started.

Long-term rental agencies are still optimistic

Although it is not easy, no one can deny the long-term value of long-term rental apartments. The country’s “simultaneous rent and sale” has been continuously advancing at the institutional level. At present, the “Regulations on Housing Leasing (Draft for Solicitation of Comments)” have been released and the CPPCC National Committee still encourages the development of long-term rental apartments and supports the development of private leasing institutions.

Xiong Lin is more optimistic that, in the long run, long-term rental apartments will become the mainstream model in the future, with a market share of more than 50%.

This is determined by the characteristics of the owner’s rental demand and the customer’s rental demand. In the matter of renting a house, one end is individual landlord and the other end is individual tenant. At both ends, there are a large number of individuals with complex needs. If only simple intermediaries and information matching services are used to match, the efficiency is very low.

The intervention of long-term rental agencies plays a role of efficiently connecting the owners and tenants to meet their individual needs. The owner only needs to entrust the house to a reliable agency, and the tenant also has a richer choice of products, lease terms, payment methods and service items.

At the same time, the product forms of long-term rental apartments are showing a trend of becoming more and more abundant, which to some extent confirms the needs of both ends. Take Ziru as an example. In the early stage, we started from co-renting, focusing on people three to five years after graduation. Later, in the first-tier cities of Beijing and Shanghai, the proportion of one-bedroom to two-bedroom rental products continued to rise, and new products such as Ziruu Apartments and Ziru Mansion have been launched successively. Recently, Ziru has built a 63,000-square-meter rental community “Ziruili” in Guangdong.

Xiong Lin said that with the innovation of practitioners and the promotion of the government, urban rental supply is continuously optimizing. “I personally believe that in the future, there will be rich and free choices for leasing. People will have more choices of housing that are of the same quality and that make people feel happy. A very good lifestyle.”

If you look at the future market structure, centralized apartments may have small and beautiful companies in different segments, but decentralized apartments will become more and more concentrated. Because the mainstream supply to meet the rental demand of the urban population in China is still scattered community-style properties.Model is king, this is also an opportunity for a head organization like Ziru to harvest after 9 years of solid operation.

As a real estate + Internet industry, the business model of long-term rental apartments is relatively stable. In the past 9 years, Ziru has continued to build its own capabilities in products, services, O2O, Internet technology, and communities, and will continue to work hard and invest in these areas in the future. Although what we do will not change, as the scale grows, the social responsibilities that companies have to bear are getting heavier and heavier. Such as maintaining the stability of the price of the urban leasing system, and even garbage sorting.

Xiong Lin believes that leasing accounts for more than 35% of the population of large cities in China. In the long-term rental apartment industry, every suite, every customer managed, and every work order delivered constitutes this city. Part of life, the apartment industry itself is an indispensable part of urban operations. What a long-term rental apartment needs to do is not only a simple functional product, but also the responsibility of more community or urban life.

“If we use this kind of mentality to do so, long-term rental agencies really have to regard themselves as part of the city’s operations, part of the community, and even assume the responsibility of promoting the development of urban residential and civilized forms. Of course we If we haven’t done enough on this, we will continue to work hard to translate these responsibilities of understanding into products and services.” Xiong Lin said.