The "Silent Growth" Behind 420,000 Rental Properties: How Does Beike's Hassle-free Rental Define the Long-term Rental Market?

Currently, more and more people are concerned about the situation of the rental market because its role has become increasingly important.

From a market perspective, the rental market has become a buffer layer for the entire real estate market. If renting offers high cost - effectiveness, young people will not be in a hurry to buy a house; if the rental return is stably higher than the savings income, some property owners will not be eager to sell their houses at a reduced price. This means that it can "store" a part of the buying and selling demand in the rental market first, providing a bottom - support effect for the real estate market.

This is also why current policies are vigorously promoting guaranteed rental housing, subsidizing the rental group, and at the same time encouraging different types of business entities to enter this market to provide diversified services.

Another very important point is that when a person newly arrives in a city or starts a new career, the first important thing in their life plan is "renting a house". Whether the rental experience is good or not directly determines their impression of this city. Therefore, the rental market is one of the entry points to observe the friendliness of a city.

Conversely, the rental business is also the first opportunity for real - estate industry chain enterprises to reach potential users through products, and it is an entrance for in - depth brand promotion and user reach. Therefore, more and more enterprises are entering the rental field to seize this entrance.

After these institutionalized rental enterprises entered the market, the products on the market have been greatly enriched. Although there are still many problems, the rental experience is much better than it was ten years ago or five years ago.

The entire rental market has also become more mature, and a very obvious sign is that the scale of leading enterprises is getting larger and larger.

When making a horizontal comparison of these enterprises, we made a very surprising discovery: the scale of self - operated rental properties under management of Beike Xingxinzu, an in - house rental product under Beike Huiju, doubled in 2024, reaching 420,000 units.

It should be noted that the data announced at the end of the first quarter of last year was still 240,000 units, and it increased at an average rate of 60,000 units per quarter in the next three quarters.

In the recently released financial report for the fourth quarter and the whole year of 2024, Beike's rental business became the biggest highlight. The annual revenue soared by 135% year - on - year to 14.3 billion yuan. Beike Xingxinzu had over 420,000 units under management, and the renewal rate increased to 54%. During this period, Beike Xingxinzu compressed the vacancy period of properties from 15 days to 12 days through refined operation and improved transaction efficiency through innovative forms such as "direct rent payment with housing provident fund".

It makes people curious: "How did Beike Xingxinzu achieve such a high market acceptance?"

01 

Business Based on Values

Rental is a very difficult business, characterized by high frequency, long - chain operation, labor - intensity, and low renewal rate. In the past decade, many enterprises that aimed to focus on the rental business have failed, such as Danke and Qingke.

Falling rent, vacancy periods, and price wars for grabbing properties... Any one of these reasons is enough to kill or limit the development of an enterprise's rental business.

For enterprises, the rental business has a very big pain point: it is not a transaction of the buying - selling type and cannot be settled at once. Moreover, in the service process, it involves property owners, tenants, service enterprises, and third - party companies such as maintenance and cleaning services. The long - chain and multi - party transactions, as well as the non - standard products, make this business inherently complex.

In order to solve this problem, the traditional rental business models often deliberately move closer to the buying - selling type of transactions in terms of business models. As a result, two business models for the rental business have emerged:

• (1) Buy out the rental rights of property owners at once and then rent the properties to tenants at a higher price, turning a rental service into two consecutive rental orders and making money by taking the price difference.
• (2) Conduct one - time service transactions. Use the property information platform to match property owners and tenants for direct rental. The service is completed once the rental contract is signed, and a brokerage fee of 0.5 - 1 month's rent is charged to make money from the information gap.

The corresponding disadvantages of the two models are: the former is afraid of market fluctuations, and the latter does not provide any services during the rental period. The two phenomena in the rental industry, namely, the difficulty for enterprises to survive and the low customer satisfaction, both stem from this.

The logic of Beike Xingxinzu is a bit different. It does not try to turn the rental into a buying - selling transaction and play "games" with the rental price. Instead, it defines its core products and capabilities in "service".

That is to say, Beike Xingxinzu neither makes money from the rent price difference nor from the brokerage fee. Instead, it makes money from "service + efficiency".

For property owners, it is equivalent to asset operation, providing services such as tenant recruitment, property handover, and maintenance during the lease term; for tenants, it plays the role of a "housekeeper", providing services such as property supply, pre - rental cleaning, and maintenance during the lease term.

This logic was not mainstream in the rental industry before because the heavier the service, the higher the probability of a higher labor - intensity, and enterprises can only earn hard - earned money.

However, from the perspective of the values adhered to by Beike, it is very "justifiable". From Lianjia to Beike and then to Beike Xingxinzu, it seems that they are all doing "difficult but right things".

Returning to the essence of demand, in a rental transaction, what tenants need is the "accommodation" itself, as well as the normal use of the house without problems, rather than just property information, let alone higher rent. What property owners need is to minimize the vacancy period, reduce maintenance troubles, and obtain reasonable rental income.

Beike Xingxinzu neither buys out the properties to gain price control nor ignores the tenants after the lease contract is signed. Instead, it directly addresses the pain points of consumers.

Looking at the problem from the essence of the transaction, making money from services and realizing self - value by being good to consumers, this logic is "very Beike".

02 

Establishing Standards Based on Pain Points

In the rental market, it is not easy to make money from services, and it is also very difficult to provide good services. Because the demand is very high - frequency, large - scale, and complex in content, and the products are non - standard, all kinds of situations may occur. The reality is that in the past, no enterprise could provide high - satisfaction services for scattered rental properties.

An industry without service standards leaves people with the impression of being a mixed bag.

Taking a closer look at the rental market, we will find that it is very similar to the early second - hand housing market, with a large number of scattered properties, a large amount of information gaps, a large number of second - hand landlords, and various irregularities...

How did Lianjia break the deadlock at that time? First, it prohibited gray areas, did not take price differences, and provided real property information; then it established a service system, provided transaction guarantees, and made service commitments.

To put it simply, it led with values and followed with methodologies, "doing difficult but right things".

Beike has replicated this logic in the rental business. The concept of "quality first" has always been engraved in the genes of Beike Xingxinzu. Just as Lianjia and Beike have always adhered to high - quality services, Beike Xingxinzu horizontally disassembles business operations in the service system of the rental business and divides the transaction process according to different links such as property acquisition, property inspection, property viewing, contract signing, tenancy, maintenance, and cleaning. The purposes are twofold:

• Firstly, to ensure that the service content can cover a complete transaction process;
• Secondly, through the disassembly of operations, to conduct professional division of labor in different links and to establish and refine service standards through division of labor.

The core is: be comprehensive horizontally, be detailed vertically, and solve problems quickly.

In the property screening link, Beike Xingxinzu has clear "prohibited acquisition standards", clearly defining the bottom line for property acquisition from major aspects such as whether the property rights are clear (e.g., no disputes, no legal issues), whether there are safety hazards or business risks in the property (not acquiring properties from second - hand landlords or non - residential properties), as well as aspects directly related to the living experience such as good lighting and ventilation, reasonable floor plan design, and a good environment.

For the services during the tenancy period, Beike Xingxinzu has even carried out a systematic construction, including: eight major categories of free maintenance, 7*24 - hour online response, one - time basic cleaning after check - in, free broadband installation, multi - cycle and channel - selectable rent payment methods, service fee deduction vouchers for early lease renewal, etc., with 6 to 7 standardized service items (service rights and interests vary slightly in different cities).

Taking maintenance as an example, the eight major categories of services mainly include: kitchen and bathroom maintenance, furniture maintenance, pipeline dredging, lighting maintenance, door and window maintenance, household appliance maintenance, waterway maintenance, and circuit maintenance. In 2024, Beike Xingxinzu provided more than 3 million maintenance services for about 1.1 million customers, among which the lighting maintenance service alone reached as high as 160,000 times.

In order to improve the service response speed for tenants, in February 2024, Beike Xingxinzu established a centralized online service steward team, providing 7*24 - hour online response throughout the year. The 3 - minute response rate of service stewards reached 98.3%. Data after one - year of operation showed that more than 17% of service responses occurred during the night (21:00 - 9:00) period, with the night inbound volume exceeding 180,000 orders per month. The service stewards have greatly improved service pain points such as being unable to contact someone when needed and having no one to handle problems at night.

In order to reduce disputes and improve the problem - solving rate, Beike Xingxinzu has also built some "firewalls". For example, in 13 cities across the country, compensation reserve funds have been set up for "property safety losses" and "personal safety losses" in the managed properties, specifically used for the advance payment of funds after disputes arise from property maintenance issues. Throughout last year, the compensation reserve fund project of Beike Xingxinzu had a cumulative compensation of more than 48 million yuan, covering more than 90,000 customers.

According to the disclosure at Beike's recently concluded fourth - quarter earnings conference, in 2024, the success rate of the first - time tenant recruitment of Beike Xingxinzu reached over 80%, and the tenant renewal rate exceeded 54%.

The top three reasons for tenants of Beike Xingxinzu to renew their leases include the suitability of the property itself (accounting for 54.9%), the availability of tenant steward services (accounting for 54.2%), and convenient maintenance (accounting for 50.7%). Attracting and retaining customers through services has become a moat for Beike Xingxinzu.

Beike has always believed that positive values will bring about a positive cycle, and in the rental business, Beike has once again verified that this logic is correct.

03

Professional Division of Labor Leads to Improved Labor Efficiency

There is a key factor between the establishment of service standards and their implementation without distortion: people.

"People" are the direct providers of services and also the carriers of corporate values. Therefore, in the rental business, although the traditional practice in the industry is to save costs by saving labor, and some enterprises even let sales - stewards complete all the service contents of a rental order, Beike Xingxinzu does the opposite and actively "adds people" to the rental service process.

However, more people do not necessarily lead to good services. A systematic division - of - labor mechanism is also needed, and only through collaborative in - depth work can efficiency be improved. This is the working logic that Beike has been setting up and verifying since the Lianjia era.

Professional division of labor can lead to an improvement in service levels. After the service is improved, it can bring more positive feedback, which in turn leads to an improvement in the efficiency of the entire system. By adding capabilities, a positive cycle is established.

In product design, a complete rental transaction chain is divided into 6 links: property acquisition, property disposition, online maintenance for property owners, offline rental services, online services for tenants/property owners, and maintenance/cleaning, etc. Correspondingly, 6 service roles are arranged, namely: asset management manager, customer manager, cloud steward, rental service steward, service steward, and supply - chain service provider, which is internally called the "six - pointed star".

In terms of the model, it is essentially the application of Lianjia's ACN model in the rental business. Through this approach, service deepening and focus are achieved, which is equivalent to the RCN in the rental industry.

The goal of the six - pointed star is to innovate the service model through the disassembly of business operations and the division of professional roles, re - define the responsibilities of people, service standards, and service processes, and achieve an improvement in labor efficiency and service levels through refined division of labor, promoting the service to become more professional.

Statistics show that after the establishment of asset management managers dedicated to property acquisition and tenant recruitment, the per - capita efficiency of asset management managers increased by 29% year - on - year at the end of 2024.

In the fourth quarter of 2024, the number of days for re - renting a property was shortened from nearly 15 days at the beginning of the year to an average of less than 12 days in Q4, and the annual tenant renewal rate increased to about 54%.

The division of roles leads to service focus. Service focus leads to an improvement in the professional level of services. Good services in turn lead to a higher renewal rate and tenant recruitment success rate, shorten the tenant recruitment period, reduce tenant recruitment costs, and thus bring lower operating costs and higher rental efficiency. This mechanism is more sustainable than increasing the premium by cutting labor costs.

04 

The Partnership of "People and Technology"

In terms of efficiency improvement, Beike has always attached great importance to the cooperation between "people" and "machines". "People" provide services at the front - end, and "machines" (technical systems) provide systematic support and intuitive data feedback at the back - end to enhance the effect.

This mechanism can be said to be Beike's exclusive secret weapon. Whether it is the property dictionary or VR property viewing, they have all made Beike a driving force for high - technology - content companies in the housing service industry chain.

In the rental business, the deep - seated recognition of "technology - driven" has given rise to new technological achievements.

The system of Beike Huiju is called "Huijingying AIMS (artificial intellect management system)". Based on three major scenarios of property management, property acquisition, and property disposition, it realizes intelligent monitoring and early warning of inventory properties, market supply and demand, as well as intelligent matching of people and properties.

In the property management scenario, the AIMS system conducts real - time inventory of the structural risks of inventory properties based on the "market demand prediction model", gives timely early warnings and intervention suggestions, changing the past "mending the fold after the sheep is lost" operation mode to "taking precautions in advance" and improving the inventory turnover rate; in the property acquisition scenario, based on the results of intelligent inventory early warning, it formulates property acquisition plans to balance the expected income of property owners and the property disposition risks; in the property disposition scenario, based on the property acquisition plan, it dynamically responds to market trends and changes in customer needs, and reasonably allocates the traffic, price, and marketing costs of properties to achieve the optimal property disposition efficiency.

The systematic service and technical system reduce operational risks, improve rental satisfaction, and form a more efficient matching of people and properties and service response efficiency. According to the internal calculation of Beike Huiju, since the AIMS system was piloted in Nanjing, it has been able to improve the operational labor efficiency of service providers and managers by 40%.

Through rule reconstruction and technology empowerment, the rental property transaction has shifted from the inefficient "labor - intensive" model to a more efficient "technology - intensive" company. Combined with the contract model of "fixed service fee rate, no price difference", it has completely got rid of the vicious invol