Problems faced by domestic short-term rental websites passers-by: it looks beautiful.

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Passers-by 400 million yuan of financing, the short rent to the public opinion of the tuyere. Some people say that the short rent of the spring has arrived, the future will hit the hotel, the truth is this?

Article | Wang Haitian

A pedestrian network of two rounds of financing a total of 400 million yuan of news, so that short-term rental market has been warmly sought after. All walks of life exclaimed that the industry's spring has arrived, even someone put words "short rent will be reversed hotel."

2011 can be called the first year of Chinese short rental enterprises, ants short rental, love day rental, travel the world in this one-year-old online, passers-by network in the year of December online. Ant short rent model can be called Consumer-to-consumer, oneself only do platform, charge transaction commission, rent by landlord and tenant both sides docking, passers-by is the net is the company, in addition to the offline to find listings and rent, there are hotel apartments settled in the network. If you say ants short rent is taobao, passers-by is Jingdong mall.

For the business model of the pedestrian network, founder Rojun "invented" a set of "Lunchbox theory": "You buy a box of bento boxes by the roadside, eat the rest to throw away." I said you don't throw, I help you eat and then wash the bowl back to you, and give you five yuan. "Explanation is: The owner of the vacant house to the passers-by to manage, rental income by the two sides divided into, during the rental, the maintenance of the facilities of the house by passers-by to be responsible." If rented house 400 dollars a night, of which 200 dollars to passers-by, 200 to the landlord, not to go out when the passers-by do not have to pay the owner. The business model looks perfect: you don't have to pay for your own property, you don't have to worry about the rental rate, there's no risk, just wait for the penny. But is the perfect business model so perfect to operate? 55 divided into "good things, so easy?"

If you simply look at Rojun's "Lunch Box theory", the prospects are really tempting, the passers-by do not need to pay rent to buy property can be divided into money. Compared with hotels, passers-by are a typical "light asset". But careful analysis, the passers-by are not so "light":

1, management difficulty and cost control. Although the model of passers-by is short rent, it essentially provides a similar product in the hotel. And the hotel service is inseparable from the people, the property is someone else, but the passers-by need to provide waiters. In transit home on the website, Swidden (passers-by own) house has such a clause: every three days a sanitary cleaning, every six days to change the bed sheet quilt cover. If under three days, the guest requests to clean, the charge is as follows: one room, 18 yuan/time; one room, one hall, 28 yuan/time; Fang One hall/Fang two halls, 38 yuan/times. Such provisions in the economic and star hotels are extremely rare, passers-by do so, it seems not to do the hotel that "economy", so some hard costs can only be passed on to consumers. Another example is that when a guest checks out, the passers-by will not send a person over to inspect the house. CEO Rojun interviewed also frankly, because of this, time, human cost is too high, the passers-by would rather bear the loss of inspection, also do not want to check. Does this not reflect the difficulty of managing a pedestrian model?

2. The risks of policy and law. The birth and development of an emerging industry will inevitably touch on the boundaries of some laws. Short-term rental, has not been the traditional rental services, more like a hotel, and our laws on the hotel business has very strict conditions, operators need to have health permits, special trade licenses, fire permits and many other licenses. The home of the passers-by to the private housing and short-term rental, in the end whether it conforms to the current law? The guests live in a house without fire facilities, who will be responsible for the accident? These are question marks and are still in the grey area. In addition, this newspaper reporter call passers-by customer service, ask whether can open the invoice, the staff reply, some house can open, some can't open. If the future grows, how will these grey areas face regulation?

3. The ecological system is sleepy. The apartment of the pedestrian website can be divided into two kinds now, one kind is the apartment that the passers-by manages, for short Swidden, these houses mostly come from the individual, the other is the professional Hotel apartment company, they settled in the transit home this platform. For the first, the passers-by are the self-employed mode; the second, the passers-by become a pure open platform. Using the logic of E-commerce to explain, the former is the passers-by sell their own things, the latter is other people in transit home to sell things. But the problem is precisely this: proprietary and open selling is the same thing, are hotel apartments, such an ecosystem will inevitably bring competition problems. Try to cite an example: in transit home on the internet search Sanya vacation apartment, row in front of all is the passers-by house sway, and the right to write eye-catching "concessions" word, while the third party Hotel apartment is not only ranked in the back, the right side also has no "concessions." What reason, a look at the know. This highly similar product, how does the passers-by solve the conflict between self and platform?

The problem of passers-by reflects part of the short term rental industry. Consumer-to-consumer ant short rent, pig short rent challenge is bigger, in addition to face the law, policy risk, its offline situation than passers-by more complex. The landlord publishes the information, the platform needs to pay more time manpower cost to examine and inspect, in order to guarantee the real availability. Not only to act as a platform role, but also as an intermediary task. In the long run, ants short rent such consumer-to-consumer mode, must develop a large number of "ground troops", like group buying, which is almost O2O common, looks very light, operation is very "heavy".

In addition to short rental enterprises themselves, there are problems in the industry. The current short rent in the domestic is a kind of acceptance is not yet concluded. Safety, health these are concerns, not "sharing the economy" so simple. As for the market capacity, can not simply take Europe and the United States a year tens of billions of U.S. dollars as a reference, after all, China's short rent has just arisen, and in Europe and America has a century of history. As for Airbnb, HomeAway, the same is true: they can only represent the situation in Europe and the United States.

In short, short rent not only has the industry problems, there are patterns, consumer problems. It is premature to say that spring is coming.

Short rent is a "No certificate" of the industry

Chu Pudding Hotel Founder

Short rental industry, the earliest I paid attention to. On the policy, I do not know that the industry itself is not legal, I am not too clear. Our hotel industry needs public security approval, such as check-in. When the scale is smaller, the government may not be too concerned, but do not know what will happen when it is bigger. However, as a hotel, the need for special industry license, including sanitary, environmental protection and so on a pile of certificates, permits. So I can't come to compare two industries. Because I don't know if short rent is legal.

Short-term rents have been in this mode for four or five of years, but renting a house as a short-term lease will not be approved. In addition, the residential can not be used for commercial purposes, there are clear provisions, including electricity, water, and so on, these energy consumption are residents, and the cost of commercial customers is not the same. This is unfair to the commercial, the Trade and Industry Bureau and other departments will not approve the license. I have no way of judging anything that is not certified. So it's hard for me to compare "undocumented" and "proven" industries. Like Jingdong and Taobao, a development ticket, a do not open invoices, we are not the same, how to compare?

I think the biggest risk is the risk of policy, other things such as profit, housing or small. The reason why there is no regulation, because of the small size, after the big, perhaps the relevant departments of regulation will follow. The key point is that the whole night may be closed. Like a private car, once soliciting money, this is not legal.

For the moment, the short rent is still between legal and illegal, I really do not understand.

Short rent is not a mode of subversion but destruction

Zong Ning Internet commentator

Short rental This thing's rise, is largely because of a large number of housing idle status, at the same time, the essence of short-term rental, but also around the hotel services management, actually playing a ball, and did not create what new value, but only to revitalize some of the unused resources. Short rent itself is not rent, but the essence of the hotel services;

But different from foreign countries, the hotel service industry in China has a high threshold, the reason is very complex, the core reason is safety and health. Security contains a lot of content, such as the identity of customers security, customer's living security, will not have outlaws using short rental as a temporary crime site, the customer is robbed of who to be responsible for, will not appear the landlord and foreign thieves inside situation (such as the House key directly to the lawless elements of burglary). Health issues, in addition to cleanliness, also involve the issue of infectious diseases. Bedding can not disinfect cleaning, once infection or even spread disease, how to do?

From the management efficiency, short rent is not cheaper than cheap hotels, services will not be better, so the only advantage is that the room itself has become residential, reducing the threshold of hotel access. It's not a new model, it's breaking the old rules. This profit is due to the gray business, and if the formal management, there will be no profit margin.

The short rent model has the economic value, but has the higher social risk, sooner or later will be regulated by the state, thus loses own profit space, even exits the market. If you want to do a similar business model, then each of the short rental housing must have a household to be responsible for, as the direct responsible for safety and health, the hotel staff also found a replacement, which relates to the qualification of a personal operator.

Why America's short rent can be done

Juberchun, senior lawyer, American law firm

The shared economy (the sharing economy) has been around for a long time, for example, in the United States, where a holiday house has been rented out. But the Internet allows sharing to be achieved on a large scale, and when demand and supply are efficiently configured, even short leases can give the lessor a more stable source of income. Let ordinary people with limited risk tolerance rent their rooms to strangers, depending in part on trust between people, but at the same time a platform that already has a large number of users can provide a tenant or landlord with a credit estimate for each other through user records and feedback received. Access to credit can take advantage of other platforms, such as Airbnb, to help users judge their creditworthiness by leveraging their LinkedIn information.

It is also necessary to point out that companies like Airbnb provide a global product, not just in the United States. I have repeatedly used Airbnb in Greece and Turkey, in the United States used once, the experience of not much difference, are very good, fortunately, the landlord will be English.

Security issues do not seem to be significant. In the past, it was famous that the landlord's room in San Francisco had been seriously damaged by the tenant, and Airbnb began to provide insurance to the landlord. The United States has no invoices, and most countries in the world have no invoices. The US government levies individual income taxes on random income such as short leases, which are reported by taxpayers themselves.

China's short term rental future is the high-end customers

Kuantai, managing director of Highland Capital

In the United States, there are already two big companies in short term leasing, one is HomeAway and the other is Airbnb. The former has a market value of more than 2 billion dollars, which, although not listed, has a large market value. Therefore, VC pursuit of short-term rent is not difficult to understand.

From my personal point of view, the domestic short rent far from the blowout period. Unlike group buying, short rent is not for everyone, but middle-class, not in general sense. In China, this group of people are not passers-by, ant users, the development of users need time to nurture. Passers-by are sought after because of the background: Ctrip is the largest shareholder, the founder is a successful example of entrepreneurial success ... These factors add up, VCs will want to vote, so it will make people feel that the company has some special place.

The current short-term rent, the main customer base or economic users, such as college students, very want to go to a place to travel, but the cost of hope than the hotel cheaper, more suitable for this super traveler. In this way, the service will not do the five-star hotel, because if it is a five-star service, how can you sell at such a cheap price?

In fact, there are also limited listings. China's rich have, also a lot of, but will not put the beautiful house to strangers live, this is a problem. It's not about income, it's about risk, and there's a big gap between China and the United States on trust. In addition, if you go to a place for vacation, the economy is good, still choose the hotel. Because there is a restaurant, room to send meals, there is a package, the location is also better. If it's a short lease, there's no other selling point besides being cheap.

I do not think VC is crazy chasing short rent, because the current short rental business is not so much, just a few. If the "Thousand Regiment Wars" like the original group purchase, there will be thousands of short rent, but not so much at present.

As for the imaginary space, 23 may be difficult to say, but in 35, there may be a company listed, but the model and Airbnb, HomeAway will be very different. China's short-term rental needs to have high-end listings, high-end customers, but this will take time to accumulate, is not mature.