The "catfish" effect of long-term rental apartments is gradually emerging.

The graduation season is the peak of the rental market every year. Relevant data show that the number of college graduates in 20 19 is expected to reach 8.34 million, a record high. With a large number of college graduates taking up jobs, accommodation has become the most urgent practical demand. This demand can be seen from the recent rapid increase in rental content on many young social platforms.

As a rapidly rising form of housing supply in recent years, long-term rental apartments have become the choice of more and more young people. What are the characteristics of long-term rental apartments? Why is it favored by young people? What are the problems facing development? In this regard, the author interviewed.

There are changes at both ends of supply and demand

Long-term rental apartments stand out, behind which are subtle changes in the demand side and supply side of the housing market.

On the one hand, housing demand groups will shift their focus from buying a house or "renting first" to high-quality renting. Not long ago, the Blue Book of China Youth Renting Life released by relevant institutions showed that the consumption of renters in contemporary cities is upgrading. More than 60% people said that they prefer to rent through the long-term rental platform, nearly 80% people will decorate their rented rooms carefully, and nearly 40% post-1995 tenants are willing to use more than 40% of their income as rent to pursue a higher quality rental experience. At the same time, from 20 18 to 20 19, the "post-90 s" tenants accounted for 75% and became the main part of the urban rental population.

Liu Ying, a Shanghai white-collar worker, has been looking for a house for the past few months. In addition to using common rental websites such as 58 City and Freedom, she also searches for relevant information through social networking sites such as Douban Group, BBS and Post Bar. "At first, I wanted to find an intermediary or a landlord to rent directly, but I found that the online information was mixed and it was very troublesome to screen. In order to settle down as soon as possible, I chose a long-term rental apartment after matching the needs. Although some service fees are generated every month, in general, renting an apartment for a long time still makes me feel convenient and worry-free. " Liu Ying said.

On the other hand, long-term rental apartment operators have accelerated their development. According to incomplete statistics, by the end of 20 18, there were more than 80 brands of long-term rental apartments in China market, distributed in about 50 cities, involving more than 1200 centralized apartments and135,000 decentralized apartments. Specifically, the operators of long-term rental apartments upgrade and standardize their own houses or houses collected from the market, and finally form the corresponding serviced apartment.

In the home near Jianguomen in Beijing, the author saw that the staff were busy checking in for the guests. In this six-story building on the edge of the Second Ring Road, the underground part has been transformed into a public space of 1 000 square meters, which integrates fitness, reading, leisure, office and residence, while the aboveground part has hundreds of bedrooms ranging from 16 to 45 square meters and some personalized theme rooms. The author saw in several spare rooms on the fifth floor that living facilities such as double beds, air conditioners, washing machines and wardrobes are readily available. "Now is the graduation season, and summer vacation. Many young people who are looking for jobs and internships choose to live here. " The staff member said.

Long-term rental apartments have developed rapidly

Insiders pointed out that under the background of consumption upgrading, people pay more and more attention to the quality of living, and the policy also encourages the development of standardized residential rental market, which makes the brand of "long-term rental apartment" with large-scale and standardized operation increasingly favored, stirring the whole residential rental market like catfish.

"Compared with individual housing, the standardized and large-scale rental platform contract is relatively complete, and there is generally no malicious seizure of money. The list of chain brands is relatively clear, so don't worry about the inconsistency between online photos and reality. Some long-term rental apartment brands adopt a unified IKEA decoration style, and the decoration of each room is different. The decoration styles of latte, kapok, Su Mi and pudding are fresh and fashionable, which is more suitable for young people. " Liu Ying said.

Ye Kangkang, who lives in Zhengzhou, found that renting houses in the market are mainly divided into individual houses and intermediary houses. "When I just graduated from college, I met an informal intermediary. When renting, I feel that the environment is OK and the price is reasonable. However, it was later found that the quality of home appliances there was very poor, and they were not repaired if they were broken. The house was cut off from electricity and water, and no one repaired it, and the deposit was not fully refunded. Now I have learned the lesson of renting a house. I prefer to choose reliable personal housing or well-known long-term rental apartment brands. " Ye Kangkang said.

The data shows that in 20 18, the domestic long-term rental apartment market has exceeded15 trillion yuan, and the financing scale of the long-term rental apartment industry is nearly 77 billion yuan. Long-term rental apartments are entering a period of rapid development.

The report "20 19 China Long-term Rental Apartment Market Survey and Consumer Behavior Monitoring" released by Ai Media Consulting shows that the rental area of China housing rental market will reach 8.06 billion square meters in 2022, and the rental population of China housing rental market is expected to reach 240 million in 2022. "From 20 1 1, I began to enter the field of long-term rental apartments. At that time, the housing rental market, especially the long-term rental apartment market, was not concerned, but we firmly believe that the development of long-term rental apartments has great market space and social value. Later, with the' house is used for living, not for speculation' deeply rooted in people's hearts, enterprises, investors and even the whole society pay more attention to the return of houses to residential properties, and long-term rental apartment operators have also received more attention and support. " Liang Zhanhua, chief operating officer, told the author.

Fine management has become a trend.

Why can long-term rental apartments become the "catfish" of the housing market?

Experts believe that housing not only has certain investment attributes, but also is an important resource related to people's livelihood. Rental housing has always existed in large numbers. The traditional real estate market is dominated by the fragmented mode of "intermediary matching landlords and tenants". Landlords are worried that tenants will damage their houses, the return on investment will be low, and tenants will change frequently, resulting in long-term vacancy of their houses, resulting in waste of residential resources and insufficient effective supply of houses. Long-term rental apartments are aimed at these pain points, strive to improve and make market resources come alive.

"The data shows that 68% of free owners have had their own rental experience before. It is not easy for traditional intermediaries to match rental transactions by relying on information advantages. For example, some houses have superior geographical location but poor living conditions, and landlords are unwilling to invest in improvement, which makes it difficult to meet the needs of tenants; Some landlords are picky about tenants' personal characteristics such as occupation and living habits, which reduces the audience range of house leasing; Some landlords have no time to provide supporting maintenance and cleaning services for tenants, which has caused dissatisfaction among tenants. " Liang Zhanhua said that he can freely fix vacant houses with long-term contracts, and then use his accumulated experience in design, decoration and management to decorate houses in a unified way. Finally, he can freely publish and finely manage the housing through official website and APP, so as to solve the market pain points, enhance the tenant experience and ensure the landlord to obtain stable rental income.

However, with more and more competitors, lower profit rate and low tide of capital, the long-term rental apartment market has exposed problems such as excessive formaldehyde, privacy security, price gouging and contract disputes. Especially with the increase of brands, the phenomenon of hot cities competing for housing is becoming more and more prominent, which raises the rent price and increases the cost of tenants. Frequent incidents of air quality exceeding the standard have also affected tenants' trust in long-term rented apartments with "decoration cards" to some extent.

Dong Ximiao, a senior researcher at Chongyang Financial Research Institute of Renmin University of China, believes that long-term rental apartments have just started and will inevitably encounter various problems. Promoting the healthy development of the long-term rental apartment market requires multi-party cooperation. First, improve the housing rental market supervision system, clarify the division of responsibilities, and form a joint force of supervision, especially for the phenomenon of "driving up prices", which should be stopped from the system. The second is to strengthen the prudent operation of housing lease credit, take the opportunity of in-depth rectification of Internet financial risks, speed up the ban on unqualified lending platforms, and ensure the "residential property" of the long-term rental market; At the same time, we will develop lease credit products that are directly oriented to tenants and have better processes and prices to better meet market demand. In addition, long-term rental apartment operators should also take the initiative to improve and build a reliable brand in combination with various problems raised by tenants to avoid a flash in the pan.