Property management gaining momentum

Slowing offtake and tightening policies prompt real estate firms to consider new growth avenues

Real estate developers from China are shifting their focus to property management, which is tipped to reach a market size of 1 trillion yuan ($141.9 billion) in five to 10 years, even as low sales, crimped financing options and tightening policies continue to plague the sector, industry experts said.

"We see property management as a blue economy with market value in excess of 1 trillion yuan in the next five to 10 years and we expect over 100 companies in the sector to be listed in the coming decade," said Ye Mingjie, vice-president of Shimao Group, a diversified real estate company.

Last week, Shimao Group said it was upgrading and re-christening its property management unit to Shimao Service, ahead of a potential listing in 2021.

"We are looking at having an initial public offering in 2021. At present we have 100 million square meters of property under our management and the size will double to 200 million sq m by 2020, and further soar to 300 million sq m by 2021. We believe that would be an opportune size to have ahead of the public offering," said Jason Hui, vice-chairman and president of Shimao Group.

In Hui's opinion, managing 300 million sq m of property means Shimao can provide services to about 3 million households or up to 10 million people by 2021.

Property sales had declined across China during the three months to July, both in terms of newly built and pre-owned homes, largely due to dwindling credit options and tightening policies, according to the Shanghai-based E-house China Research and Development Institution.

"Sales will continue to be the focus for property developers for a considerable length of time, but when it comes to large-scale property sales in terms of square meters and value, there is little scope for further improvement," said Ding Zuyu, CEO of E-House (China) Enterprise Holdings Ltd.

According to Ding, nearly 1.7 billion sq m of property were traded last year, for a total value of about 15 trillion yuan.

"In contrast to the limited growth potential for property sales, property management grew steadily year-on-year with total property space expected to exceed 30 billion sq m by the end of this year. A large majority of this would be operated by specialized property management companies," said Ding.

There is also limited growth potential for sales to grow further, considering the huge number of homes sold last year in terms of both gross floor area and value.

Experts said the Chinese real estate sector is entering a new stage in which more homes are being traded in the secondary market. This is especially so in the first-and major second-tier cities, where transactions of pre-owned homes account for more than half of the total trade, with the figures surpassing 80 percent in Beijing and Shanghai.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics data, residential property space completed nationwide declined 11.7 percent year-on-year to 229.29 million sq m in the first half of this year, continuing the 7 percent and 8.1 percent decline seen in 2017 and 2018.

"In contrast with the limited chances for another boost in property sales, the property space in use grew steadily and is projected to exceed 30 billion sq m later this year, with a majority in need of management services," said Ding.

"Against such a backdrop, property services will be a new growth engine for the real estate sector," said Country Garden Services Holdings Co Ltd in a written response to China Daily. Thanks to its diversified service in tapping into various consumers' needs, the Hong Kong-listed company said its revenue in 2018 surged 49.8 percent year-on-year to more than 4.67 billion yuan.

Yang Zhifa, vice-chairman of Greentown Property Service Group Co Ltd, expects quality services to become the buzzword for property management firms.

"Even if there comes a day when developers no longer build homes, the demand for property management and services will still exist, and will exist for a long time," said Yang.

Property management service is also perhaps the only part of the real estate sector that has not been affected by policies or any other macro economic elements, and is one of the largest platforms for employment with immense growth potential, said E-House's Ding.

Factors like services have become the mainstay of the Chinese economy and accounted for 46.3 percent of the total employment in 2018.Technology has also helped property management firms to provide more tailored high-quality services, said Ye.

"The property service sector is sufficient to have dozens of listed companies offering quality services," said Ding.

Future competition will focus on the capability to provide value-added services as well as branding, according to Country Garden Services, which saw a 72.5 percent growth in its value-added service revenue in 2018. The developer has so far invested about 300 million yuan on technology, intelligent management and informatization.

By the end of July, there were 14 listed property management service companies on the Chinese mainland, among which one is listed in the A-share market and the rest in Hong Kong, according to public information.

Like Shimao Service, all the 13 Hong Kong-listed firms are independent from their parent companies including big-name property developers like Greentown China, Country Garden, Kaisa Group and China Overseas Property.

Founded in 1998, Greentown Property Service has in the past years transformed and upgraded the business in accordance with market requirements by using state-of-the-art technologies as well as knowledge gained from successful experiences in overseas markets. By the end of 2018, the Hong Kong-listed property service provider was managing 360 million sq m of property in 137 cities across 29 regions on the Chinese mainland.

Operating about 505 million sq m space in more than 280 cities across China and in Malaysia, in 2018, Country Garden Service tops all the listed service companies by generating 934 million yuan in net profit, and its revenue reached 4.68 billion yuan, only second to Greentown Property Service.

Hui said Shimao Service, which for the moment serves 2.4 million customers within 100 million sq m of property in more than 50 cities, will become one of the key business units of the group along with residential, commercial and office, and hotel spaces, and through in-depth collaboration with technology giants, the group looks to create an ecosystem for life services in the future.

Although the listing destination is yet to be determined, Shimao Group is looking to generate 2.4 billion yuan from hotels, 1.8 billion yuan from commercial and entertainment spaces, and 2 billion yuan from property management (services) this year.

"The hope is to have an above 40 percent annual growth, and the group will spinoff its hotel and property management unit and go public in three years," Hui was quoted as saying by the Securities Daily.

Wang Junlin in Shanghai contributed to this story.

wang_ying@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Global 08/16/2019 page10)