Real estate sales slowed in 2018. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the country's real estate sales increased 12.2% year-on-year to 14997 billion yuan (RMB) in 2018. Same below), slightly lower than the 13.7% growth rate in 2017. As a first-hand housing agency market leader, Yi Ju has been impacted by market sentiment since the fourth quarter of 2018. We expect revenue growth from first-hand real estate agency services to be lower than our earlier estimates, so we lowered our first-hand real estate agency service revenue forecasts for 2018 and 2019 by 18.2% and 19.1%, respectively, to $5.06 billion and $5.938 billion. The Chinese real estate market came under some pressure in 2019, but we are confident that EasyJu will benefit from its strong shareholder background and increase its market share in the future.
Robust data service business. Easyhome will maintain a robust data service business. Cray's consulting system provides developers with macro-level data on the Chinese real estate market. We estimate that real estate big data and consulting services revenue will increase from 629 million yuan in 2017 to 831 million yuan in 2018, and will rise further to 1,041 million yuan in 2020, reaching a compound annual growth rate of 18.3%. In 2019, the company launched the China Asset Management Information Consulting Service Platform, which is an overall sales platform for retail, office and hotel databases. Currently, close to 2,000 property assets are sold online. The platform uses blockchain technology to conduct safe, secure, and controllable transactions. From Creve to China's asset management information consulting service platform, property big data services can now be expanded from residential properties to commercial properties.
The loss of agency services was brought under control. Under the EasyHome “Roommate” brand, the company provides platform services for small and medium-sized real estate brokerage companies across the country to develop first-hand property sales markets. The company has set up a total of 50 service centers in 27 cities. In the first half of 2018, the income of houseguests increased 3.8 times year over year to 168 million yuan. As of August 2018, the number of Roommate Stores reached 10,000. Although we expect renters to achieve a CAGR of 250% in revenue between 2018-20, the business is expected to record losses early on. We estimate that losses from tenants will remain within 100 million yuan in 2018, and will begin turning losses into profits in 2019.
Lower forecasts and target prices. Due to smaller economies of scale and changes in operating margin assumptions, we lowered our 2018 and 2019 earnings forecasts by 21.1% and 22.9%, respectively, to $1,057 million and $1,495 million. As a result, we lowered our target price from HK$21.8 to HK$16.41, equivalent to 14.2 times the anticipated price-earnings ratio for 2019. Upside is 36.8%. Maintain the buy rating.