The launch of the official second-hand housing transaction supervision service for individual independent listing functions means that there are new channels for independent second-hand housing transactions, which to a certain extent releases a signal to increase the supervision of the second-hand housing market.
Recently, the second-hand housing transaction supervision service platform in Hangzhou has launched the new function of “personal independent listing of housing”. For a while, many netizens couldn’t hide their excitement: Individuals can publish their listings on the official platform, which means they can bypass the intermediary agencies in the market to buy second-hand houses and save a lot of intermediary fees. For real estate intermediary service companies, this is obviously not good news. The bad news quickly followed, thinking that second-hand housing intermediaries will soon be replaced by official platforms. It may be affected by the news that Hangzhou’s official personal trading platform was launched. The share price of Shell, a leading domestic intermediary company listed on the Nasdaq, fell.
In fact, the official second-hand housing transaction supervision service system has been “just about to move.” The official platform of second-hand housing in Hangzhou is not newly launched these days. It has been launched as early as 2016, but this time the personal self-listing function has been updated. The official platform is not unique to Hangzhou. It is understood that Beijing also launched a stock housing transaction service platform many years ago. Shangqiu Yongcheng City, Henan Province also set up a real estate information center to provide services such as buying and selling second-hand houses, as well as seeking rent and renting houses.
Before Hangzhou, the latest developments came from Shenzhen. On June 24 this year, Shenzhen briefly launched the official “second-hand housing transaction system”, which also includes “self-service housing sales”. The relevant local person in charge explained that it will soon be offline that it is currently only in the testing phase. The goal of the system is to strictly control the owner’s listing price, make second-hand housing transactions more transparent, and assist in monitoring the chaos of the intermediary market.
The launch of the personal independent listing function of the official platform means that there are new channels for independent transactions of second-hand housing, which to a certain extent releases a signal to increase the supervision of the second-hand housing market. In recent years, as the proportion of second-hand housing transactions in the total transaction volume has been increasing, the stability of the second-hand housing market has become more and more important for stabilizing the real estate market. In the past, the real estate market control measures were mostly aimed at the new housing market, and the regulation and supervision of the second-hand housing market were relatively weak. Since the beginning of this year, many cities have issued guidance prices for second-hand housing. Giving full play to the role of the second-hand housing transaction supervision service platform is to increase the control and supervision.
At present, if the official second-hand housing transaction supervision service platform is to truly play a role, it still needs to further improve its functions. Intermediary agencies will not be able to be replaced in the short term. The relevant person in charge of the official platform of Hangzhou City said frankly that the main purpose of launching the function of “individual independent listing of houses” is to facilitate the people and provide a new sales channel for individual homeowners to sell their houses. The homeowner can list the listing on the official platform as well as the intermediary to increase the chance of transaction. If it involves professional services such as mortgage loans and property rights investigations, it is still impossible to bypass intermediaries.
Hangzhou’s official platform has a relatively simple function, which can only display the listings and the landlord’s contact number. If the buyer and seller agree on the price, and the property rights are clear, and there is no loan demand, the transaction can indeed be done quickly using the official platform. However, most second-hand housing transactions are relatively complicated. Mature intermediaries can verify and provide housing qualifications, tax calculations, screening housing, showing, analysis and comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of housing, help with mortgages, loans, payment of deed taxes, and online signing And a series of professional services. More importantly, there are more and more hidden dangers in transaction security such as current capital risks and transaction flaws. The existence of intermediaries helps reduce the risks in transactions between buyers and sellers. The relevant person in charge of the Hangzhou official platform also stated that the platform has not yet established a fund supervision account. The next step will be to consider setting up a fund supervision account to resolve the worries of buyers and sellers.
Needless to say, for the official second-hand housing trading platform, the masses are very happy to see it happen. The official platform provides housing verification and comprehensive information display of housing, which is conducive to the smooth flow of information between buyers and sellers. The government’s endorsement has high credibility, which is conducive to eliminating fake housing, purifying the trading environment, and preventing buyers and sellers from obtaining false information. Although it is difficult for official platforms to provide more in-depth and detailed services in a short time, if more cities launch official second-hand housing trading platforms and gradually improve them, it will inevitably affect the development structure of the industry. Some people in the industry also believe that official platforms can have a division of labor with intermediary service agencies, and they are not meant to replace them.
The high expectations of home buyers for the official platform also reflect to some extent the dissatisfaction of the general public with the status quo of second-hand housing intermediary service agencies. There are frequent chaos in second-hand housing transactions, and individual intermediary service agencies and personnel use false housing to solicit buyers and encourage owners to raise prices in groups. More complaints come from the high intermediary fees, especially in the first-tier and other hot cities. The intermediary fees based on the total housing price are indeed a considerable expenditure.
The supervision of intermediary agencies by relevant departments is further increasing. When many cities introduce measures to rectify the order of the real estate market, they will increase the supervision of second-hand housing intermediaries as an important content. This year, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and other eight departments jointly issued a notice, proposing to strive to achieve a significant improvement in the real estate market in about three years, and the supervision of intermediary agencies has been mentioned again. Standardizing intermediary services is the expectation of the market.
Source: Economic Daily
Original title: Will the real estate agency withdraw from the market with new channels for independent transactions of second-hand houses?
Author: Kang Shu