The Legislation Of Housing Lease Restrains The Willful Expansion Of "Renting" And Getting On The Right Track

On September 7, the Ministry of housing and urban rural development issued the housing leasing regulations (Draft for comments) (hereinafter referred to as the "Regulations"), which is divided into 8 chapters and 66 articles, comprehensively standardizing the rights and obligations of lessors, lessees and leasing enterprises.

Among them, "the rent shall not be increased or reduced unilaterally within the term of the contract", "the landlord shall not enter without the consent of the tenant", "the decoration shall not endanger the personal health of the Lessee", "the rent loan related contents shall not be included in the housing lease contract", etc., which are quite in line with the current hot spots.

Although it is still in the stage of soliciting opinions, as one of the most important top-level design documents in the housing rental industry, the regulation is still concerned by all parties.

Since the regulatory authorities first proposed "simultaneous development of rent and sale" in 2014, the leasing industry has ushered in an opportunity for rapid development. However, in recent years, the excessive pursuit of capital has led to local overheating of the industry. From the "formaldehyde gate" incident, to the rent reduction storm, and then to the frequent explosion of long-term rental apartments, the rights and interests of tenants and homeowners are often damaged.

Since August this year, friends, nesters, lanyue and other long-term rental apartments in Hangzhou, Shanghai, Chengdu and other places have been exposed to be on the run, and long-term rental apartment enterprises such as Mancheng in Sichuan and manlicheng in Chongqing have also been exposed to be suspected of running away. Therefore, Shanghai, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Hefei, Hangzhou and other places have issued housing rental market risk tips.

Can this draft for comments help the rental market get on track quickly?

The pain of expansion

China's leasing market has started for a long time, but the opportunity for its rapid development is considered to be the first time that the regulatory authorities proposed "developing both leasing and selling" in 2014. Since then, governments at all levels and regulatory departments have issued a number of supporting measures to support land supply, housing supply, financing preferences, institutional development and other aspects.

From 2017 to 2018, the industry entered a period of rapid expansion. With the support of capital, many enterprises expand their scale rapidly. Among them, the rise of specialized leasing institutions is considered to be an important step for the market to grow and mature gradually. According to the statistics of Zhongyan Puhua Research Institute, there are more than 100 institutions of scale in China.

According to statistics, in most hot cities, rental institutions provide more than 60% of the housing.

The main business model of leasing institutions is to earn rent difference through "low in and high out", and earn commission and related service fees in the transaction. To a certain extent, the purchase cost can be diluted due to the scale.

Hu Jinghui, chief economist of Jinghui think tank, pointed out that in order to achieve scale expansion, many institutions compete for housing resources at a level higher than the market price, which is the most "Crazy" situation in mid-2018. According to Hu Jinghui, the cost of taking a house in some institutions is even higher than the rental price of houses in the same district and household type.

The increase of housing cost, combined with the brand effect of operators, once pushed up the rent level. Taking Beijing as an example, according to the data of Shell Research Institute, from 2016 to 2018, the average monthly rent growth rate in Beijing exceeded 10%, which is one of the two periods of rapid rent rise in Beijing history.

But for the rental market with high price sensitivity, this logic is difficult to sustain. The above-mentioned institutions also pointed out that the rent level in Beijing has been negative year-on-year since August 2019. In August this year, the average rent in Beijing was 86.6 yuan / square meter / month, a year-on-year decrease of 1.0%.

Many hot cities are faced with similar problems. The fluctuation of rent level makes the institutions have to "enter high and low out", and put pressure on the fragile capital chain. The blue book of real estate: China's real estate development report No.17 (2020) issued by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences points out that in 2019, 53 parents' apartment rental institutions can't continue to operate due to broken capital chain and acquisition, which is the so-called "collective explosion of long-term rental apartments".

"Vulnerable" tenants

Since the beginning of this year, the new crown epidemic has had an impact on returning to the city and employment, which has again impacted the rental market. In addition to the cost pressure, the institutions with high price will also bear the cost loss caused by the increase of vacancy rate.

In order to reduce the cost, from June to July this year, China's largest long-term apartment operator freely negotiated with a large number of Beijing's homeowners to reduce the entrusted price, otherwise they would be forced to breach the contract. This has triggered a large number of contract disputes, many homeowners choose to protect their rights collectively. In addition, eggshell, Xiangyu and other long-term rental institutions also encountered rent reduction disputes.

These three companies are the leading institutions in the field of long-term rental apartments in China. Since January 2018, we have completed four rounds of financing. Excluding the undisclosed a + round, the other three rounds raised more than 10 billion yuan. Eggshell, Xiangyu and other institutions also have relatively stable funding channels.

Some operators with few financing channels and poor cash flow are facing a more severe situation. Wang Xiaojia, an analyst at Zhuge housing data research center, pointed out that the frequent "thunder" phenomenon of long-term rental apartments in recent years is precisely caused by the double effects of the new crown epidemic and market adjustment. Although the rental market has warmed up in the second half of the year, it is still operating at a low level, and some small institutions have accumulated difficulties.

In this process, the tenant will face the risk of homelessness and loss of deposit, and the owner will also bear a lot of loss of income.

The relevant person in charge of a long-term apartment operator in Beijing pointed out to the 21st century economic report that the payment mode of rental institutions is "long-term collection and short payment", that is, quarterly, half a year or year is taken as the unit to collect the renter's rent; and the monthly payment is made to the owner. "This way can maintain the" capital pool "of operators to the maximum extent and ensure that there is sufficient funds for daily operation. But if there is no regulation, once the operator "runs away", both the owner and the tenant will suffer losses. "

Among them, as the most vulnerable party in the lease transaction, the rights and interests of the tenant are most vulnerable.

Since 2018, there have been many cases of excessive indoor formaldehyde that affect the health of tenants. Therefore, it has been taken to court for many times. During this year's epidemic, some long-term apartment operators have been driving out tenants.

The road of standardization

"Housing leasing business originates from the real estate brokerage industry, and the two types of enterprises are often accompanied. Previously, there were few laws and regulations for housing rental enterprises, and they were not supervised according to the characteristics and laws of the housing rental business industry. " Huang Hui, a senior analyst at Shell Research Institute, told the 21st century economic report.

For a long time, the management of leasing industry is mainly included in the management of real estate brokerage industry. However, the amount of real estate leasing business is not taken seriously. In recent years, the scale of the leasing market has expanded rapidly. Although many normative policies have been issued, it is still a consensus that the top-level design documents are missing.

The relevant person in charge of the above-mentioned operators said that due to the small scale of single transaction of house leasing, even if there are rights protection cases, the amount involved is not high. In recent years, large-scale leasing organizations have risen rapidly. In some "thunder explosion" cases, the amount involved is huge and the social impact is bad. This is another background of top-level design documents.

Although the document released by the Ministry of housing and urban rural development is only a draft for soliciting opinions, its framework and core content will not be greatly adjusted according to the Convention. Analysts generally believe that this "regulation" has a strong normative and guiding significance for the industry.

Huang Hui said that the regulations have changed the past situation of mainly supervising landlords and tenants, regulating and restricting the supervision of lessors and lessees, leasing enterprises and brokerage activities, especially strengthening the supervision of leasing enterprises and brokerage activities, which can more effectively regulate the market order.

At the same time, the introduction of the regulations also helps to promote the institutionalization and normalization of housing rental market supervision.

Wang Xiaojia said that the protection of the rights and interests of tenants is the biggest highlight of the document. Among them, the regulations mentioned to strengthen the rent monitoring of the rental market. When the rent rises too fast, measures will be taken to stabilize the rent. It not only helps to maintain market stability, but also reassures tenants.

In addition, for leasing operators, it is both an opportunity and a challenge to include the "high in low out" and "long-term collection and short payment" institutions in the list of abnormal operation, and strengthen the supervision of the use of rent and deposit, which will force them to pay more attention to their own operation and profitability. It is worth noting that housing rental enterprises will still enjoy preferential policies in finance, taxation and land, which means that it is still a good thing for the whole industry.