"The winter of the agency industry has also arrived."
On the same day, an insider who asked not to be named told Time Weekly that the acquisition was a group of two old real estate agency service companies, and explained that channel sales had an impact on the agency industry.
According to the report, in the first three quarters of 20 19, the real estate transaction business, as one of the main businesses of World Bank, decreased by more than 22% year-on-year.
The World Bank issued a document saying that it will transform the comprehensive sales and distribution business and re-enter the new house trading track.
Chen Jinsong, President of the World Bank, did not criticize the disadvantages brought by channels to the industry. In a public forum not long ago, he questioned: "In the past, the industry rule of selling houses was to charge an agency fee of less than 1%, and now the channel fee is 6%. Who divides the marketing expenses of this channel? What is involved here is not 654.38+0 million yuan or 654.38+0 million yuan, but corruption of hundreds of millions of yuan. "
There are more accusations of channels from the outside world, and kidnapping marketing is serious, surpassing housing enterprises and becoming "the first party of Party A", destroying the real estate ecology.
Zuo Hui, chairman of Shell, is not without discontent. Recently, he said in ten comments in response to market public opinion: "The channel is the developer's chamber pot. Put it back if the market is not good. "
In Zuo Hui's view, the GMV (total transaction volume) of new houses exceeded 15 trillion this year, only 10%? 15% of the transactions are conducted through intermediary companies.
He believes that the new housing market will shrink in the future, and the transaction scale will be reduced from 15 trillion yuan to 12 trillion yuan or even smaller, but the proportion of intermediary companies in new housing transactions may exceed 50%.
Is the channel really kidnapping housing enterprises?
Evolution of "Little Bee"
Nowadays, the morphological boundaries of channels are more extensive. These "little bees", which were originally only responsible for expanding customers in the traditional marketing chain, have changed from dispensable to "necessities" for developers.
Bringing accurate and huge buyers to developers is the advantage of channels over agents and traditional marketing methods.
Based on the views expressed by many real estate industry insiders to Times Weekly reporters recently, the reasons why the channel was criticized are concentrated in two points:
First, some housing enterprises were kidnapped by competing channels. In order to maintain sales and market share, they have to accept the high commission of the channel, and the channel side also has the right to speak on the commission pricing in the buyer's market.
Second, some channels also have the problem of "only washing customers and not expanding customers", which causes a waste of marketing costs and even damages the brand image of housing enterprises.
Taking Beijing as an example, restricted by the 70/90 policy, it is inevitable that the competition rooms in the same region will be homogenized.
"If developers lack advantages in product strength, their dependence on channels will be amplified." On February 3, 65438, the head of the marketing department of the top 20 real estate enterprises revealed to the reporter of Time Weekly.
Especially in the case of market downturn, many third-and fourth-tier cities with high pressure of de-industrialization rely more on channels.
On the 3rd, Chen Dong (a pseudonym), the regional head of another top ten real estate enterprises, told the Times Weekly reporter that speeding up the return of sales is related to the life of developers. Especially in recent years, financing difficulty and high cost have become the common sense of real estate enterprises. "It is very common for third-and fourth-tier cities to reach the channel rate of 10%, and even some projects will be higher."
According to the reporter of Time Weekly, in some cities, the sales of cultural tourism market cannot be separated from channels. The Peacock City Project in Xinxitang, Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, once opened many channels and agencies such as Fangduo, Hanyu, Yiju Fangyou, New Real Estate, Hengzhuo, Zhongyuan and World Union 10.
Developers have eaten the sweetness brought by channels.
According to Chen Dong's memory, especially at 20 10? During the period of 20 14, the rise of major real estate e-commerce platforms represented by Fangtianxia helped developers to directly target interested customers. Even after 20 14, the state has strict restrictions on real estate e-commerce, but there are also some platforms that integrate the resources of individuals or small and micro enterprises to expand customers for developers, such as multi-rooms and shells.
65438+February 1, the sales staff of an Internet media real estate department admitted to the reporter of Time Weekly that in the cooperation with real estate enterprises, the other party often requested to include the direct effect indicators such as customer calls, customer visits and customer conversion brought by the advertising promotion of their own media into the contract.
"It is no longer like a media platform, but more like the existence of channels. In the context of developers, they tend to cooperate with platforms that can bring customers through channels. " The person said.
Housing enterprises love and hate channels.
However, it is too early to say that the channel has completely kidnapped the developer. This is the view expressed by some people in the industry when interviewed by Time Weekly.
In Chen Dong's view, first, not all projects will choose channels; Second, usually after a project channel accounts for more than half of sales, developers will naturally reduce the use of channels; Third, the developers themselves have their own sales teams, and they don't even need to open channels in some cities with better decontamination.
Some developers also reported to the Times Weekly reporter that in the actual situation, if we rely too much on channels, it will cause marketing problems, and the sales of channels and housing enterprises are blended, which will bring internal corruption.
"Channels cannot completely cover all marketing links. Developers need to master pricing power, customer awareness, product positioning and so on. And it is impossible to subcontract marketing. " Chen Dong analyzed the reporter of Time Weekly. Generally, when deeply cultivating a certain area, developers tend to establish their own sales teams, and channel companies only cooperate with the role. When you enter a new city, you will use an agency.
According to the reporter of Time Weekly, most projects also have strict regulations on the proportion of self-marketing and channel agents, and self-marketing usually accounts for a large proportion.
Channel utilization focus and information asymmetry bring herd effect. "Show you I can get a higher discount" and "Please contact me before seeing the house" are often used by Burt's bees to buyers.
For developers, they use the positive effects of competing products to promote the next home.
The agency also cooperates with channel companies. The description in the industry is "the former eats meat, the latter drinks soup": the channel side gets a very small part from the commission given by the developer to the agent. However, when the channel side has mastered most customers, the roles of both parties have changed.
Before the channel rate reached 10% or even higher, the channel rate was once at 1%. Between 3%.
"How reasonable the channel fee is is actually the result of the game between the channel and the developer." On February 2, 65438, the person in charge of a top 30 real estate enterprise in Shanghai told Time Weekly that the project with high channel rate was either the intermediary itself signed a sales task with the developer, or the project itself was under pressure of de-industrialization and needed high commission to stimulate it.
According to this person, the reporter told Times Weekly that the overall marketing expenses of conventional real estate projects are generally controlled at 2%? Between 5% and 1%? The channel rate between 3% is already a relatively high proportion.
Standardization and standardization of channels
In any case, channel standardization has become the voice of the industry.
For developers, how to practice internal skills has become a major proposition. At present, developers have realized the double-edged sword function of channels.
Self-built channels are forming an industry force. Real estate enterprises such as Evergrande, Country Garden and Vanke. Carry out the national marketing concept, establish your own online channel app, and encourage national brokers, such as Hengfangtong of Evergrande, Fenghuang Tong of Country Garden, Share Home of Vanke, and Enjoy Home of Longhu.
The logical premise is to use the marketing ability and owner's resources of enterprises, use the resources originally used for third-party channels for their own channel construction, combine big data and information platforms, skip channel companies and set up housing enterprises? Self-built channels? Closed loop between buyers.
This has become the learning direction of some small and medium-sized housing enterprises. For example, the smart home launched by Midea Real Estate is positioned as the company's future mobile sales center, and buyers can directly find matching houses on this platform.
Some developers also proposed to standardize marketing.
Take Shimao as an example. According to the reporter of Time Weekly, usually a project will guarantee a large proportion of standard marketing actions, and the remaining resources will be freely exerted in combination with local market conditions. In 20 15, the company began to build a "full marketing process" system, which is divided into three stages: pre-sale, in-sale and after-sale. The whole process from land acquisition, positioning, promotion, customer storage, strong sales, contract signing, delivery and settlement is systematic and standardized.
According to the statistics of the developer's three-rate in the first half of 20 19 of Hanyi Zhiku, the average three-rate of TOP 100 real estate enterprises was 13.8%, which was 0.4% higher than that of 20 18.
The "three expenses" rate is considered to be one of the reference indicators to measure the cost, finance and other control capabilities of housing enterprises. Add up the sales expenses, management expenses and interest expenses and divide them by the operating income.
Among them, the three expense ratios performed well, and the housing enterprises below 9% were China Shipping Real Estate, Yuzhou Real Estate, Greenland Holdings, Rongxin China, Shimao Real Estate, Vanke, Poly, Country Garden and Longhu.