Property changes under the catalyst of the epidemic

In the process of urbanization development, urban progress driven by urbanization, industrialization, and informatization is gradually becoming a new engine for economic improvement. Among them, as a scenario closely related to the "living" demand, the importance of property cannot be ignored.

Especially in 2020, in the face of the surging epidemic, "closed management" has become a common community management model, and community management has become the last line of defense for residents' safety. From access control to cleaning and disinfection, from material purchasing in the last kilometer to express delivery in the last 100 meters... the emergency prevention and control system of residential properties has gradually become clearer, and the value of property management services has further attracted people's attention. Property companies are also experiencing A test of the degree of specialization. At the same time, the property management industry, which is facing the dual test of emergency response capabilities and service capabilities, is also ushering in a wave of unprecedented changes and opportunities.

Changes catalyzed

At Mao Shi, the first comprehensive disinfecting without blind spots began; at Chen Shi, the security guard took over the duty, checked outsiders, and registered for temperature measurement; at Si Shi, he became a "delivery person" "Runner"; at noon, ask the owners for purchasing needs, count supplies, and recycle discarded masks; at noon, start the second comprehensive disinfection; at noon, cooperate with the community to visit residents at home to ease the mood of the owners; at unit time, count prevention and control materials Usage and inventory; at Xu hour, night shift duty handover; at Hai hour, equipment maintenance; at midnight, park patrols; at Ugly hour, monitoring community dynamics... This is the "twelfth hour" of Yali Life Real Estate, and it is also the epitome of real estate developers during the war epidemic.

The epidemic has made "staying at home" the norm, and property services have thus transformed into "supermen" in life. In the face of the epidemic, in order to ensure the safety of property owners, property management companies have exerted unprecedented emergency response capabilities.

The community property management began to assign dedicated personnel at the entrance and exit of the community to strictly register, verify and measure the body temperature of people entering and exiting 24 hours a day. At the same time, owners were reminded to wear masks when going out. The community implemented "closed" management, prohibiting non-community owners, Vehicle entry. Within the community, the property management company has carried out 360-degree full coverage and high-frequency scheduled disinfection work. In addition, we carry out strong disinfection of high-touch public areas such as corridors, elevators, and trash cans, and provide special designs such as paper towels, toothpicks, and special trash cans for discarded masks to minimize the possibility of epidemic spread and ensure the safety of community owners. .

At the same time, the sudden outbreak of the epidemic has also made it inconvenient for citizens to go out for shopping. Coupled with the closure of some lifestyle outlets and other reasons, daily necessities such as grocery shopping have become a major problem in life. Paying attention to this demand, many property companies have launched grocery shopping services. For example, Shenyang Longfor's "Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Delivery Service" was launched during the epidemic. Owners place an order before 15:00 on the same day, and the purchased food will be delivered to the designated location of the property at 11:00 the next day.

“The time is fast, the food is fresh, and what makes me warmer is the property services, which are delivered directly to my doorstep, and each package has a record card, and the body temperature of the delivery staff and delivery staff are recorded. Marked it, give the property a thumbs up!" commented a Shenyang owner on the Longfor U Xiangjia vegetable set meal.

In addition to food delivery, in order to ensure the lives of community residents, the property has also added a series of new "special" services such as express delivery, meal delivery, pet care, online free clinics, facial recognition access, and smart parking. , online repair reporting, online payment, smart prepaid electricity meters and other smart scenarios are also frequently used due to the "contactless" advantage.

“During the epidemic, communities implemented closed management, and some people were quarantined,” said Zhang Hongwei, chief analyst of Tongce Research Institute. Under such circumstances, the launch of such services by property companies is a combination of the current situation. The emergency adjustments made to the impact of changes in the epidemic on residents' lives are also a reflection of the property's value-added service capabilities.

Following this, people are discussing more and more about real estate.

"Our community has a real estate agent to help buy groceries. Mom, don't worry, don't worry about me, I'm quite safe in Beijing," this is a WeChat message sent by a Beipiao to his mother; the child has a cough and the epidemic The incident was so serious that the child's grandma consulted a doctor through the property management and Chunyu Doctor's online free clinic. After careful questioning, the doctor came up with a diagnosis of a common cold. "I finally let go of my worries. It's all thanks to the property management," the child's grandmother was grateful. Said; a community owner lamented in a circle of friends, "When buying a house, you must check the property services. Not all houses are the same to live in.

”

For a time, the once inconspicuous property management industry stood under the spotlight. Property-related topics aroused heated discussions among netizens and became the most popular topic during the epidemic, apart from the angels in white who rushed to the front line to help. C-position "stars"

And property management companies generally encounter varying degrees of challenges in personnel rotation, material coordination, and service forms, and their different responses to problems have also made the epidemic It has become the "touchstone" for distinguishing good from bad.

Everyone seems to have a "measurement scale" in mind regarding the performance of their own residential properties, and people's thinking about housing is also changing subtly. People are beginning to have the idea of ????changing houses, and some people are secretly happy that they have bought the right one. Some people even bluntly say that real estate websites can summarize the recent property performance of all communities, and this information is absolutely valuable as a reference for potential home buyers.

A recent online survey also showed that only 20% of people are satisfied with their home environment, 56% believe that changing houses can improve the current situation, and as many as 52% of people have plans to buy a home, of which 18% are just in need. %, with improvement accounting for 34%.

China Jinmao publicly stated at a recent online press conference that the company speculates that the total number of improved customers will increase after the epidemic, and it is expected that such high-net-worth customers will increase. People will pay more attention to property services, community facilities and the application of "contactless" black technology in community public facilities and smart homes.

"At this stage, especially during the critical period of the epidemic. , owners have personal experience of the property management company's service experience and whether the service is attentive. "Zhang Hongwei pointed out that after the epidemic, it is not ruled out that capable owners will replace houses with insufficient property management capabilities. He admitted that under such circumstances, good property management companies will inevitably be recognized by the market, and the property management industry will Market concentration will further increase.

Guo Yi, chief analyst of Heshuo Institution, said that after this epidemic, both owners and home buyers will have to pay attention to the impact of good property services on the health and well-being of the entire community. She has a deeper understanding of the role of safety and daily service quality. She believes that future owners will be more inclined to choose properties, and even when purchasing new properties, owners will pay more attention to the property companies they provide in the future. Yan Yuejin, research director of the E-House Research Institute Think Tank Research Center, also said that property services will become an important consideration for home buyers.

At the same time, property companies will also pay more attention to properties. Higher service exposure has also caused its value to be revalued by the capital market. Since the beginning of the year, property stocks have generally increased by about 20%, with Aoyuan Health and Kaisa Beauty stocks increasing by nearly 40%. On March 20, Huajing Securities released a research report showing that since the beginning of the year, the overall P/E (price-to-earnings ratio) budget of the property sector has increased from 27.4 times to the current 35.2 times, and the PEG (price-to-earnings growth ratio) has increased from 0.88 times to 1.11 Times.

Behind the continued strength of property stocks is the fact that more and more investors are optimistic about the property management industry in the long term. “Considering the defensive business characteristics of its (property companies), The positive policy environment and positive growth prospects catalysts maintain an optimistic view on the property management stock sector. ”

Under this situation, the desire of real estate companies to spin off the property sector for listing has become increasingly strong. On New Year’s Eve, Financial Street Property and Songdu Services submitted prospectuses to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange; on January 31, Hong Kong Kun Property submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and has passed the hearing; on February 24, Xingye Wulian, which is based in Henan, passed the hearing of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and is expected to become the first property stock to be listed in 2020 after the resumption of work during the Spring Festival. Since then, five property companies including Zhenrong Services, Financial Street Services, Hong Kong Yexing Holdings (formerly Hongkun Property), a subsidiary of Hongkun Group, have submitted applications for listing in Hong Kong. At the same time, Zhuoyue Property, Landsea Green Life and properties owned by China Resources Land Management companies have also been rumored to be planning to go public.

Searching for “opportunities” amid “crisis”

Technology support helps material companies grow in value

During the epidemic, Closed management has become the norm in communities, which has also put a lot of pressure on property management. In order to find a management balance between ensuring the safety of the community and residents' necessary travel, property companies such as Aerospace Property, Jiayuan Property, and Changguan Property have used it. The "Community Epidemic Prevention Pass" developed by Liaolang Xinynzhu not only saves owners the trouble of queuing up to receive passes and the risk of gathering, but also allows quick access by simply scanning when entering and exiting, which is both convenient and efficient. .

In order to avoid cross-infection, private cars have become the first choice for most people to travel during the epidemic. Due to the large amount of manual verification, insufficient manpower, and lack of protective materials, property service personnel are faced with numerous challenges and risks to a certain extent.

During the epidemic, communities affiliated with property companies such as Jinhui, Yongsheng, Great Wall, and Dafa, combined with the smart parking warning channel developed by Langxin Technology Group, effectively solved this dilemma.

During the epidemic, the "Smart Parking Alert" urgently developed and launched online monitors the time and frequency of vehicle entry and exit in real time to determine the behavior of car owners. Set the number of times and other car owner behaviors to automatically alert and push proactively to focus on relevant personnel involved in vehicles that have not returned for a long time, vehicles that have been parked for a long time, and vehicles that frequently enter and exit, thereby assisting the property to achieve precise prevention and control and efficient management.

In this regard, Wang Hongguo, head of the public service business of Langxin Technology Group, told Caijing.com: "The design concept of smart parking must not only focus on the intelligence and convenience of the owner's parking behavior itself, but also We need to think for the property companies, while achieving digital management transformation, we must also achieve cost reduction and efficiency improvement.”

It must be said that this application can alleviate and reduce the pressure of staff shortage faced by the current property management. and the surge in epidemic prevention workload. It effectively improves the efficiency of epidemic prevention, reduces exposure opportunities, and fully protects the safety and health of front-line workers.

In the anti-epidemic war, there are countless similar technological elements.

In the Country Garden community in Changde, Hunan, two drones carrying 84 disinfectant are flying in the park; the Guangdong Country Garden service team installed ultraviolet disinfection lamps with human body sensing functions in the elevators. In addition, new applications such as smart security monitoring cloud platforms, smart gate systems, and property information management systems have also appeared in turn, significantly improving the efficiency and results of community epidemic prevention.

Property companies have implemented an "offline + online" three-dimensional defense, effectively laying a "dragon net" on the front line of epidemic prevention and control. The use of intelligent systems to achieve overall overall planning of work also improves the management efficiency of property companies and reduces stress for frontline employees.

In addition, intelligent applications originally targeted at high-end properties have reduced the frequency of contact between owners and high-frequency contact points and outsiders, making them safer and more efficient, and have shone brightly during the epidemic. It has become a necessity to protect daily life during the fight against the epidemic.

However, although the property management industry has been continuously working towards automation and intelligence in the past few years, the sudden outbreak of the epidemic has still exposed the "labor-intensive" characteristics of this industry, and the "shortage of people" is still This is a common problem faced by many property companies at present.

Specifically, during the epidemic, the workload of several positions such as disinfection and cleaning, customer housekeeping services, etc. increased significantly. In the past, project housekeepers only needed to handle some daily consultation, reception, complaints, cashiers, and repair reports. However, during the epidemic, in addition to taking on additional tasks such as delivering food and supplies, sometimes even reaching the level of spiritual communication with customers, the scope of work was further expanded to pay attention to the elderly and key groups; the security guard position originally only required At the door, many tasks can be completed directly by relying on property informatization. Nowadays, these personnel also have to stand on the front line and be responsible for body temperature measurement and other tasks; while the property personnel responsible for environmental cleaning usually only involve cleaning up garbage, but now they are also responsible for Disinfection and disinfection in the community, diversion of waste masks, prevention of infection systems, etc. Not only that, based on the more complex requirements put forward by the epidemic on overall property management, property companies must also increase online information operation positions and cooperate with the outside world. Cooperate with each other to find new positions. At this stage, property companies often adopt the method of optimizing the allocation of positions, such as closing several positions and allocating them to other positions for support.

In order to alleviate the "labor shortage" dilemma, many leading property companies have put forward their recruitment plans in advance. On February 21, Xie Jianjun, general manager of Kaiyuan Property, posted a poster in WeChat Moments, announcing that Kaiyuan Property had launched a 2,00 talent recruitment plan during the epidemic. On February 17, Vanke Service announced that it would launch a recruitment plan for 20,000 people in advance. At about the same time, Poly also launched a national spring recruitment plan.

On the other hand, large-scale personnel recruitment will inevitably increase the pressure on labor costs of property companies to a certain extent.

In addition to the increase in recruitment labor costs, the current costs of property management companies are also changing: some employees who returned home to visit relatives during the Spring Festival are still unable to work, but their basic wages must still be paid; now all employees who stick to their posts need to work overtime. Overtime wages must also be paid as usual; in addition, the purchase of protective clothing, masks, disinfectants and other anti-epidemic materials, as well as the investment in employee meals, are also a considerable expense. According to data from the China Materials Research Association, the material cost of epidemic prevention materials has increased the total cost of property management companies by 10%-20%. The increase in the flow of people caused by the rework wave and the expansion of the scope of epidemic prevention and control will further increase the need for cleaning and disinfection. The frequency, scope and intensity will further generate greater material costs and compress the profit margins of property management companies. According to official data, in order to combat the epidemic, Vanke Service is expected to increase expenses by 200 million yuan.

“Smart property is more about using technological means to improve work efficiency.” Lu Wenxi, a market analyst at Shanghai Zhongyuan Real Estate, said that in the past, the staffing of property companies could basically meet service needs, even if there were fewer technological means, it would still have a negative impact on daily life. Inadequate service is not a threat. But at present, the workload has surged, and community service personnel may not be able to attend their posts due to isolation. The empowerment of technical means is of great help in improving property efficiency. A research report released by CITIC Securities also stated that as a labor-intensive industry, technology is constantly optimizing and releasing the human resources of property companies, allowing companies to continue to increase the per capita area under management without significantly reducing service satisfaction, thereby effectively Resolve industry-wide pressure from rising unit labor costs.

In general, "Smart property must be the trend of the future," Zhang Hongwei said with certainty. First, the development of the technology itself, namely 5G, supports more intelligent operations such as the Internet of Things and face recognition. Secondly, especially after the epidemic, people's lives will be more dependent on the Internet. For example, contactless services are required under special circumstances. This is also the need for property companies to use technology to make them more in line with the needs of specific application scenarios when providing value-added services. Not only that, technological means can detect the diverse life service needs of owners, and can also effectively optimize idle physical space and human resources so that they can be invested in value-added services. Technological progress is also conducive to the formation of collective decision-making, which facilitates flexible pricing of property management fees, and also helps brand property managers replace inferior service providers.

From a certain perspective, this sudden epidemic has also become a "touchstone" for smart property, and the attitude of property companies towards smart technology will also change. Lu Wenxi said that after the epidemic, property management companies will realize that technological means can indeed improve efficiency, reduce corporate employment costs, and improve management capabilities. Its technological and financial investment in smart communities may continue to increase, or its use efficiency may be further improved. "With the improvement of technological means and the reduction of investment costs, smart properties will eventually become popular from mid-to-high-end."

Currently, for brand real estate companies that have the vision to invest in smart properties, their property performance It will also bring a word-of-mouth premium to subsequent residential sales, making the value space more obvious. Zhang Hongwei bluntly said that during the fight against the epidemic, the level of application of science and technology also reflected the differences in capabilities of different property companies.

"Special" service innovative property management business model

The quality of the property management company, its convenience, and the level of value-added services will also greatly affect the company's reputation and Determine whether the home buyer will subsequently purchase its residential product.

As a bridge between the community and property owners, grocery shopping, express delivery, food delivery, pet care... During the epidemic, these "warm" value-added services fully reflected the "last mile" of property companies. service value.

Zhang Hongwei said that nowadays user contact is basically online. From the perspective of community property value-added services, if users’ consumption habits can be well cultivated at this stage, it will be conducive to improving the performance of property value-added services and further Promote increased revenue streams.

In Zhang Hongwei’s view, property management companies have natural advantages in this regard. “The advantage of property management companies is to guard the entrance to the community.” The higher the market share of property management companies in cities, regions and across the country, , which means that the more community entrances it controls, the greater its potential market influence. This is one of the reasons why real estate developers compete for community e-commerce.

Furthermore, compared with the recent rise of Internet e-commerce, the advantageous resources of information and services possessed by traditional property companies in community e-commerce have become increasingly prominent during the epidemic.

On the one hand, property management companies already have owner resources and have very low user churn, which is conducive to the development of value-added businesses. At the same time, you can set entry barriers when managing the community and impose certain restrictions on competitors. On the other hand, traditional properties have more advantages in cost control and dispute resolution, making it easier to build user trust and direct traffic online.

“However, the current value-added services launched by property companies are mainly aimed at the relatively severe current situation of the epidemic.” Guo Yi reminded that from a property perspective, during the epidemic, property companies not only need Consider the logistics and other capabilities of cooperative third parties. In addition, you should also select based on the consumption strength and relatively concentrated purchasing needs of your own community owners, and finally integrate them into your own Internet platform. "Therefore, for property companies, they must first have such awareness, and secondly, they must be willing to invest corresponding funds in building online platforms."

In addition, Guo Yi said that after the epidemic is over, similar The service contents may become value-added services charged to the owners. "For owners, if they are busy at work, they can entrust the property management company to purchase the property on their behalf, and the property management company can charge a certain service fee in the process," she pointed out. This forms a win-win business model and will be sustainable in the future. However, she added that it still depends on the situation of the community after the epidemic is over, the community's demand for this service, and whether the community owners are willing to pay some service fees for this. ?

Perhaps cooperating with a third party is also a good way to continue to make profits.

During the anti-epidemic period, Chongqing Longfor Smart Service and Yonghui Supermarket *** jointly launched the "Community Security Plan" to provide owners with more high-quality and superior services using the new model of "logistics warehouse + home delivery" price products and services. Dongguan Vanke also joined hands with Dongsheng Farm to launch a "fresh vegetable home delivery" model to solve the problem of buying vegetables.

Lin Haichao, head of the smart community business of Langxin Technology Group, said that the epidemic is a good opportunity for property companies to improve their service capabilities. Compared with property companies building their own Internet service platforms, choosing the right Third-party service companies can reduce unnecessary costs caused by competition. At the same time, they can focus more on their main business and give full play to the complementary advantages of both parties. The platform will also be more powerful.

Zhang Hongwei also admitted that large property companies and large third-party platforms are fighting for market share. When competition in the industry reaches an incandescent stage, there will inevitably be a trend of integration between property companies and third-party platforms. , only integration and integration can provide more value-added services to community residents.

Service upgrades solve the revenue pain points of property companies

The improvement of intelligent and value-added services catalyzed by the epidemic is also conducive to the collection of property fees to a certain extent. Recently, nearly a hundred owners of Shimao Binjiang Australian Style Garden and Feilengcui Community in Songbei District paid their 2020 property fees in advance. In previous years, property fee payments usually started in the middle of the year. It is precisely because of the anti-epidemic period that the value of properties was further discovered. In just 5 days, property management companies received more than 270,000 yuan in property fees, which greatly alleviated the lack of funds caused by the purchase of anti-epidemic materials.

In fact, for a long time, the phenomenon of property owners arrears with property fees has always troubled property companies and property management departments everywhere. Taking Dazhou, Sichuan as an example, it currently has 120 property companies and 157 residential communities. The unpaid property fees are as high as 39.28 million yuan, and the collection rate is only about 42%. Under pressure, in October 2019, the Dazhou Municipal Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau issued the "Dazhou Municipal Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau's Notice on the Time-limited Payment of Property Service Fees." The notice clearly states that those who have not paid the overdue property fees before the end of November will be included in the list of people who owe property fees, and the time and amount of overdue payment will be notified to their work units, and will also be forwarded to the Municipal (District) Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision. and Organization Department.

Therefore, to a certain extent, the emergence of the epidemic is like a new opportunity for property companies to improve their relationships with owners and at the same time increase their property fee payment rates.

Among the nearly 5,000 survey questionnaires obtained by CRIC regarding property owners’ satisfaction with property epidemic prevention work, more than 90% of owners affirmed the importance of property in the process of epidemic prevention, and nearly 80% Owners believe that during this epidemic, the anti-epidemic work of property management companies has significantly improved compared to usual services. For the top 30 property management companies with comprehensive strength, their owner recognition rate has increased as high as 83.41%. 25% of owners reported that there are no properties in the community. Hope to increase property services.

Recently, Ding Zuyu, CEO of E-House Enterprise Group, also stated in public that the epidemic will help the property management industry form long-term value and bring about a substantial increase in payment rates for property management companies. Property income is predictable and sustainable, and there is a lot of room for improvement. Therefore, he said he is optimistic about the value of excellent properties in the long term.

In fact, based on their performance during the epidemic, property companies have also received more attention and support from the government and all sectors of society. At present, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and other places have introduced subsidy policies for property management companies. Shenzhen has proposed a two-month financial subsidy for property management companies based on the standard of 0.5 yuan per square meter of managed area.

On the morning of February 26, Beijing’s draft property management regulations were submitted to the 19th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 15th Municipal People’s Congress for a second review. The second draft of the draft increased the responsibilities of property management in response to emergencies, stipulating that property companies should actively implement emergency plans and various emergency measures. At the same time, for the previously proposed property management committee system, it is clarified that its term is three years.

Yan Yuejin said that on the one hand, the reputation accumulated by listed property companies in fighting the epidemic will help them improve their good image in the capital market; on the other hand, for unlisted properties, high-quality Community management will undoubtedly become a plus point for its future listing.

At the end of 2019, Ding Zuyu once predicted that "2020 will be a year of differentiation for property companies." Perhaps no one expected that COVID-19, the first "black swan" of 2020, would Become one of the most powerful boosters for this prophecy. The arrival of spring may also be the time for the property management industry to reshuffle.