Zuo Zhuan: The setting sun

When Lianjia develops to a certain level, we must explore a larger field.

——Zuo Hui

Text / Ba Jiuling

Zuo Hui, who was only 50 years old, passed away. #连家 Chairman Zuo Hui passed away today#

Lianjia issued an obituary on the afternoon of May 20, confirming the death of Zuo Hui, the founder of Lianjia and Shell.

He joined the real estate brokerage industry, which originally used information differences to make money, but continued to change it with more equal information. From Lianjia to Ziroom to Shell, “doing difficult but right things” may describe his entire career.

Zuo Hui told this matter as a joke several times in public. He guessed that his child would write "My Dad" after he went to school. You might say: "My dad is the biggest agency boss in Beijing."

It took Zuo Hui 14 years to open the first Lianjia store in Tianshuiyuan, Beijing, to become the largest agency boss in Beijing. .

Before Lianjia opened its first store, scandals involving real estate agents in the industry were often reported in the press.

At that time, the information channel for buying and selling second-hand houses was still posting small advertisements on telephone poles, and second-hand house agents often only closed three or four houses a year.

There are few houses for sale and it is difficult to make money, so agents can only use sideways to increase income. They collect money from renters in advance in the name of house viewing deposits and rental procedures, provide false house information, and charge the difference to deceive customers to ensure income. During Zuo Hui's 12-year rental career, he was deceived countless times by agents.

The four words "intermediaries please do not disturb" are the distrust and disdain accumulated in the industry that has been deformed for a long time. Zuo Hui felt helpless that the broker would cheat whenever he could, and he was also angry because the client didn't respect the broker.

To reassure clients and make the agent’s work valuable, an idea gradually took shape in his mind. In his third year, Zuo Hui devoted himself to the real estate agency market and founded Lianjia.

From then on, Zuo Hui, who started an insurance company, was missing from the world, and there was a real estate company called Lianjia.

Zuo Hui has subverted the industry at least three times and has been "besieged in Guangmingding" several times.

In 2004, Zuo Hui attracted the contempt of his peers because he was the first to sign a three-party contract and not eat the price difference.

In 2009, because Zuo Hui decided to give up short-term interests and use real properties to attract customers, Lianjia, which had a small number of properties and high prices, was deprived of money for several months, and the brokers thought "the boss is crazy."

Of course, the most “famous” time was when he launched Beike House Search in 2018.

The function of Beike House Searching is to collect house information, unit type, price, and supporting information from various intermediary transactions across the country to form a real estate dictionary. This is actually the “infrastructure” that Zuo Hui started building in 2008.

This has triggered concerns among peers about Lianjia’s “world domination”.

Xie Yong, chairman of I Love My Family Group, described Beike’s behavior of controlling the upstream and downstream of house hunting as: “Being both a referee and an athlete.”

And the new Beike , which overlaps with the services provided by 58.com. Yao Jinbo then launched a wave of gathering orders, sharing the same hatred with representatives of Centaline Real Estate, 21st Century Real Estate, Vanke Property and others to boycott Beike House Search.

If we want to achieve a fundamental transformation of this industry, what we face is no longer a technical problem, but how to prove to our peers that accessing Beike is a better choice.

In the three years since Beike was founded, internal organizations such as the "Store Owner Committee" and "Jury" have been formed within Beike, which have their own constraints on Beike, reducing concerns about wanting to access Beike. Of course, Beike can standardize the management of listings, bring more traffic, and also have the endorsement of real listings. Data shows that the transaction volume of merchants after access is higher than the industry average.

In 2019, 21st Century Real Estate and Central Real Estate, which had participated in the "Anti-Shell Alliance", both joined Beike to find houses. Beike lost 2.6 billion yuan in 2018 and 2019, and reversed its losses in 2020. , achieving a profit of 2.778 billion yuan. By mid-2020, 456,000 agents from 265 brands have joined Beike House Search, 70% of whom are not from the Lianjia system.

Of course, the so-called "public enemies of the industry" means that in addition to competitors, colleagues, subordinates, partners, and even customers, they will often stand against you.

In August 2018, Ziroom Rental, a subsidiary of Lianjia, was accused by netizens of pushing up rents. During the 2020 epidemic, Ziroom was criticized as "black-hearted" due to rumors that tenants and landlords were eating both sides. According to sources in the industry, in fact, it is not easy to make money in the long-term rental apartment model, and the occupancy rate must reach more than 90% to avoid losing money.

There is another topic that Ziroom cannot get around. The article "Alibaba P7 employee died of leukemia and rented a formaldehyde room in Ziroom" spread throughout the circle of friends in September 2018. A sad story about an Alibaba employee who lived in a rental house in Ziroom for half a year, contracted leukemia, and then died of the disease.

At that time, Ziroom offended landlords and tenants, and was criticized by peers for disrupting the market. From the business model to the user experience, nothing is popular. Zuo Hui was in the same situation at the time.

Teacher Wu once had an hour-long phone call with Zuo Hui. He said that Zuo Hui responded very quickly and liked to use data. to answer questions. His foundation is still that of an engineer, an engineer with great underlying architecture capabilities. He can reimagine the bottom layer of the industry and then implement it through tools. For example, shells are such a product.

Having this kind of bottom-level thinking may be the key to disruptors in any industry, and it is also the key to the founders of a new generation of mobile Internet companies. A unique characteristic clearly distinguishes them from those market-driven and expansion-oriented entrepreneurs in the past.

His least noticeable identity is probably that of "father".

It is said that when he first learned that he had lung cancer in 2013, he told his friends that his last wish was to live hard for three years, because children only have memories after they are six years old, and at that time his The youngest son is three years old. He wanted his children to remember him.

If China’s second-hand real estate market has memories, it will definitely remember this person who came through the turbulent times with it.

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Author of this article | Wu Runqian | Editor on duty | Zhang Wenlong

Editor in charge | He Mengfei | Chief editor | Zheng Yuanmei