The real estate brokerage industry, in the minds of many investors, is basically associated with "traditional industries, low-tech content, real estate agents, second-hand housing, no future, etc." this is mainly because everyone in daily contact, has formed a stereotype of the real estate brokerage industry, so is this really the case?

First, the giants uniformly distribute the real estate brokerage industry

Before answering the above questions, let's take a look at the following four pieces of news:

The first news: Tencent, Hillhouse Capital and Sequoia Capital once again offered real money to subscribe for ADS (American Depositary receipts) issued by KE Holdings Inc, the absolute leader of the domestic real estate brokerage industry, and the subscription amount is not small. Among them, Tencent will subscribe for at least $200m worth of ADS, while Hillhouse and Sequoia will each subscribe for ADS worth at least $100m.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that before KE Holdings Inc left for IPO in the United States, Tencent was already the second largest shareholder after KE Holdings Inc. founder Zuo Hui, while Softbank Corp. and Hillhouse Capital were the third and fourth largest shareholders respectively.

Second news: in May this year, proprietary e-commerce giant JD.com signed a strategic agreement with Zhongjun Group in Beijing. Zhongjun Group became the first real estate developer to open a self-operated flagship store in JD.com. This also marks the official launch of JD.com 's "proprietary real estate" business.

The third news: in August 2019, Beijing Xinyun Chuangji Technology Co., Ltd., an investment entity 100% owned by byte jump, once again completed its wholly-owned control of Beijing time-lapse Technology Co., Ltd. the latter is the main operator of the real estate trading platform "Happy Li". This means that byte jumps are deeply involved in the field of real estate transactions.

Fourth news: Internet giant BABA announced to subscribe for 118 million of the shares of China's leading new housing brokerage company, E-House Enterprise Group (2048.HK), for HK $820 million, and the two sides formed a joint venture company controlled by BABA. It is reported that the joint venture company plans to launch a new digital real estate platform within a year, with the joint venture company mainly building an online real estate marketing platform company with Taobao / Tmall as the core. Including online flagship stores, digital crime scene systems, digital marketing tools, real estate transaction market services, and the development and launch of response products and systems.

All of a sudden, the domestic real estate brokerage industry seems to have become popular, and the giants all want to get involved. So there is a very simple judgment logic for the beginning question: if the real estate brokerage industry is really as stereotyped by the public as it is, then why do the Internet giants, who have huge resources and extremely keen sense of capital, spend a lot of money and pay more? There should be cognitive inconsistencies behind this.

So, what is the real real estate brokerage industry like? What is the development status and competition pattern? What is the future development?

The above are the three major issues to be discussed in this paper.

What are we talking about when we talk about the real estate brokerage industry?

1. The scope of real estate brokerage business

According to CITIC, the real estate brokerage industry, according to the type of business, can be divided into new housing business and second-hand housing business.

The new housing business can be further subdivided into:

(I) the new housing market business is mainly the co-marketing services provided by property management companies to real estate developers to assist in the marketing activities of their property sales offices and exhibition halls, including visitor reception, cleaning, security inspection and maintenance, and so on. Because property management companies are generally regarded as independent segments of industries, the real estate brokerage industry defined in this paper does not include property management companies.

(ii) New house channel business, specifically refers to real estate developers to provide referrals and introductions to potential home buyers, and promote new home transactions, and get commission income according to the amount of sales. Generally speaking, the new house channel business is the core of the new house brokerage business. after all, for real estate developers, selling the house is the most important thing.

(iii) New house agency business, refers to the provision of agent sales services (mainly on-site sales) for developers to obtain commission income. Among them, the core difference between the new house channel business and the new house agency business is that the former is only responsible for introducing home buyers and promoting new house transactions, while the latter acts as the "sales department" of real estate development enterprises, which not only needs to plan house sales activities, but also needs to sell houses on the project site.

As for second-hand housing business, it is relatively familiar with the plate, mainly including second-hand housing sales and second-hand leasing business.

After understanding the business scope of the real estate brokerage industry, I believe investors are more interested in the current situation of the development of the real estate brokerage industry, that is, the competitive pattern, which requires an in-depth review of the history of the real estate brokerage industry. in order to have a deeper reflection on the competitive pattern of today's industry.

2. The evolution history of the real estate brokerage industry-- how KE Holdings Inc beat its competitors step by step

There are countless angles to sort out the development history of the industry, and I think it is more wonderful from the perspective of how the industry leader stands out in the competition step by step. so the following is mainly based on the interpretation of the development history of the real estate brokerage industry from the perspective of the industry leader-KE Holdings Inc.

Generally speaking, China's real estate brokerage industry can be divided into three stages: (1) the "pre-warring States" era before 2014; (2) the "warring States period" from 2014 to 2017; and (3) the "KE Holdings Inc. era" from 2018 to the present. In the first two ages, protagonists appeared, showing a pattern of "sing it and I'll post it", but since 2018, the real estate brokerage industry has finally emerged a truly dominant king-KE Holdings Inc, which also means the beginning of the "KE Holdings Inc. era". Next, let's feel how the king is made.

（1) the "pre-warring States" era before 2014

Before 2014, the C position in the real estate brokerage industry was not Lianjia (a subsidiary of KE Holdings Inc), but SouFun (now renamed Fang Holdings Limited American Depositary Shares), which is favored by the capital markets.

Why? Although Lianjia surpassed my love my family and became the leader of the real estate brokerage industry in 2008, the capital market still regards Lianjia as a traditional real estate brokerage company. there is no essential difference with I love my family, Central Plains Real Estate, 21st Century China, Le Youjia, wheat field real estate and so on. At that time, SouFun, as a window for real estate agents to release second-hand housing information, charged "port fees" mainly by collecting real estate agents to publish houses on SouFun, so, at that time, SouFun had a win-win relationship with major real estate brokers, that is, offline real estate brokers needed SouFun's traffic, while SouFun realized it by charging them port fees. So at that time, the capital market was very optimistic about SouFun's light asset model, and after its listing in 2012, SouFun's share price repeatedly hit record highs.

In contrast, Lianjia is only one of the major clients who contribute revenue to SouFun, and other real estate brokerage companies will also spend money to buy traffic and place advertisements on SouFun. SouFun can be regarded as the infrastructure and public platform of the real estate brokerage industry at that time, but SouFun is not satisfied with this and is not willing to become a real estate information platform, but tries to "unify the world". Mo Tianquan, the founder of SouFun, launched a strategic transformation in 2014 after becoming an absolute leader in the real estate brokerage industry.

It is precisely because of this major strategic mistake of SouFun, which triggered a boycott by real estate brokers across the country, which directly buried SouFun.

So, what measures did SouFun implement at that time, so that it was boycotted on a large scale by the whole industry?

In a nutshell, because of two things.

The first thing is that in May 2014, SouFun announced an increase in port charges, which directly triggered a boycott by intermediary companies in some parts of the country. For example, on May 29, nine intermediary companies in Hangzhou collectively removed all houses from Hangzhou SouFun, which accounted for more than 80% of the second-hand housing in the local market. As for the reasons for taking off the shelves, an intermediary executive involved in the action said that the cost of SouFun port package has increased nearly tenfold in the past five years, while the fees of the intermediary industry have not been adjusted for many years, and the total amount of the market has not increased. The rise in port fees is accompanied by the blood loss of intermediaries. In early August, 13 Shanghai intermediaries, including Central Plains Real Estate, Deyou Real Estate and 21st Century Real Estate, announced a boycott of SouFun for similar reasons. Subsequently, the boycott further expanded, Chongqing, Shenzhen and other intermediary companies have also joined the boycott.

The second thing is that at the real estate Internet conference at the end of November 2014, Mo Tianquan, chairman of SouFun, proposed that SouFun should be a "big platform", that is, mobile Internet platform, trading platform and financial platform, and began to set up its own direct sales team. involved in new housing, second-hand housing transactions and financial business, which means that SouFun competes directly with second-hand housing brokerage companies such as Lianjia, I love my family, and Central Plains Real Estate. Because of this transformation of SouFun, the two sides have directly changed from a partnership to an irreconcilable competitor relationship, which has directly triggered the resistance of major real estate brokerage companies. after all, SouFun directly announced that it will transform from a real estate information platform to a real estate trading platform, but also to dabble in offline real estate agents. This is undoubtedly to kill the real estate agents.

As a result, the Shanghai Real Estate Agency Alliance announced that it would remove the housing information from SouFun, cutting off the interface with SouFun; 34 real estate agents and more than 1,000 stores in Guangzhou announced that they would stop their cooperation with SouFun in the display of housing information, and accused SouFun of destroying the normal competition pattern of the industry. Lianjia (a subsidiary of KE Holdings Inc), as the leader of the real estate agent, directly cut SouFun, announced a break with SouFun, upgraded its platform "Lianjia online" to "Lianjia net", and pushed the online platform that had been laid out for many years to the front of the stage.

From the financial results, SouFun paid a heavy price for the transformation. Although SouFun's revenue continued to grow in the two years after the transformation, its profits shrank sharply and suffered a historic loss of $170 million in 2016. After more than two years of basic failure of the transformation, SouFun began to shrink its front in 2017, returning to the traditional model of Internet media e-commerce, that is, marketing services, listing services, and potential customer generation services, but the decline continued. SouFun's revenue has continued to decline since 2017. Since the transformation, Fang Holdings Limited American Depositary Shares's share price has fallen from a high of $947.29 in 2014 to the latest $12.59, a drop of as much as 99%.

As a result, SouFun, which tried to unify China's real estate brokerage industry for the first time, has basically failed. So far, SouFun has basically fallen behind the first and second echelons.

By contrast, Lianjia was more likely to accumulate and build up momentum before 2014.

So, how did Lianjia change from a small agent with only one store to successfully surpass the industry leader at that time-I love my family-and develop into the largest real estate agency in the country in 2008? To put it simply, Lianjia has pioneered the industry many times, such as the first sunshine trading model in 2004, the launch of the "Real Estate Dictionary" project in 2008, the launch of "Real Housing" in 2011, and the first advance compensation fund in the leading industry in 2013. it really provides real value for property buyers. And can be recognized by consumers, this is Lianjia's core competitiveness, but also one of the core reasons why Lianjia has become the largest real estate brokerage company in the country! However, because the capital market thinks that Lianjia's model is too "heavy", and although Lianjia is a leader in the industry, it is not far behind other real estate agents, such as I love my family, Central Plains Real Estate, and so on. Business model is not as good as SouFun.

(2) the warring States period from 2014 to 2017

As time enters 2014, the real estate brokerage industry is facing drastic changes. As mentioned earlier, within the industry, SouFun announced the implementation of strategic transformation, which has further strengthened the large real estate brokerage companies to build and promote their own online real estate platform. On the other hand, the traditional real estate brokerage industry also faces a large wave of "intrusions" by Internet brokerage companies, and at that time, the strongest momentum was the "Internet intermediary" that claimed to subvert the traditional real estate brokerage industry.

At that time, Yukiya set a world record in 2015: it took only one year and three months to complete five rounds of financing from round A to round E, raising a total of US $350 million and valued at US $1 billion, making it the fastest unicorn in the world.

There is no doubt that Aiyu Jiyu is the new darling of the capital market, so what has it done to be sought after by the capital market?

To put it simply, what Aiwujiu needs to do is more radical than SouFun. SouFun just wants to rely on its traffic advantage at that time to "unify the world" and become the absolute leader of the real estate brokerage industry; while Aiyu Jiwu, want to do more ruthless, want to directly get rid of the life of traditional real estate brokerage companies. In 2014, Aiyu Jiyu stood out in the real estate brokerage industry with the slogan of "kill the intermediary and make the store rough". It was the first to propose to use O2O to break into the traditional intermediary industry and try to subvert the industry. Specifically, Aiyuji House mainly started the "money-burning" mode, relying on the seamless advertisement that "second-hand housing transaction commission is only 1%, rental commission is reduced by half or free, broker basic salary is 6000 yuan + commission 60%, sleepless for 365 days." it completely beat the traditional intermediary that charged 2.5% commission on second-hand housing transactions, thus creating an amazing achievement in 2015, with the total value of real estate transactions reaching 40 billion yuan in that year. It took Lianjia a decade to sell more than 20, 000 houses, while Aiwuji House only took a year, at the cost of burning down $350 million in financing.

However, the good times will not last long. The "To VC" business model of Aiyu Jiyu can not stand the test of the real business battlefield. Why would you say that? Because in order to poach people and improve the enthusiasm of brokers, Aiyu House once set the broker's basic salary at 6000 yuan and raised the proportion of brokers' commission to as high as 65%. The total number of employees has reached 16000. Under the pressure of huge staff and platform operating costs, Aiyu House does not have enough cash to burn. So in the case of extremely tight cash flow, Aiwu had no choice but to announce that it would adjust the salary level of brokers, abandon the low commission model, and stop the policy of rent commission for tenants. In fact, it is no different from other real estate agents who no longer implement the subsidy of burning money. Since then, its market share has dropped sharply, and after many failed attempts at transformation, it was finally declared bankrupt in early 2019.

Although Aiyu Jiyu has gone bankrupt, it has had a far-reaching impact on the industry. specifically, Aiyu Jiyu carried out a "price war" on traditional real estate brokerage companies at that time, superimposed on the declining property market in 2014-2015. It directly dragged down many small and medium-sized real estate brokerage companies, which objectively created conditions for Lianjia to acquire established real estate agencies in 12 regional markets around 2015. At that time, there was indeed a war between Aiwujiwu and Lianjia. Aiwujiwu once invaded Beijing, the stronghold of Lianjia. In order to resist the barbaric expansion of Aiwujiyu in the Beijing rental market, Lianjia launched a sniper product, Tintin renting, using a commission-free model in which the landlord paid five days' rent as an intermediary fee. finally, Lianjia declared the model failed after burning 300 million yuan.

In addition to Aiyu Jiyu, Fangdd Network Group Ltd. (DUO.O), an Internet real estate agency that specializes in buying and selling houses directly, has decisively abandoned the so-called pure Internet brokerage model and transformed into an "intermediary behind intermediaries" after discovering that its business model does not work. It focuses on empowering real estate agents, and then has a market capitalization of only $671 million at IPO in the United States at a lower valuation. As for another Internet real estate brokerage company, QFang.com, it was wholly acquired by 002377.SZ in 2017.

All in all, from 2014 to 2017, it was the process of Internet real estate agents, such as Love my House, Fangdd Network Group Ltd., Q House, SouFun, and so on, to declare war on traditional real estate agents such as Lianjia, I Love my Family, Central Plains Real Estate and so on. And practice has also proved that for the real estate brokerage industry, "those who get brokers get the world, those who get stores get valuation." The defeat of the Internet brokerage model, first of all, stems from its over-reliance on the successful "subsidy" model of the Internet in other areas, but does not recognize the low-frequency and non-standardized characteristics of real estate transactions; secondly, the so-called Internet innovation, in essence, is the routine of high salary, high commission and low commission, which has no substantial change impact on the industry; while the uncertainty of the economic environment accelerates its demise.

During this period, Lianjia mainly did two core things: first, expansion, expansion and re-expansion; second, polishing, polishing.

Expansion refers to Lianjia going out of Beijing to speed up the expansion of offline stores in major cities across the country. The strategy adopted by Zuohui is to use capital to acquire leading enterprises in the local market, to obtain stores quickly, and to occupy a favorable market position in the shortest possible time. Around 2015, Lianjia acquired established real estate agencies in 12 regional markets, including Chengdu Yicheng, Shanghai Deyou, Shenzhen Zhonglian, Guangzhou Mantanghong, Beijing Gaoze and Dalian Cape of good Hope. For example, after Zuohui acquired Deyou Real Estate, the total number of Lianjia stores in Shanghai soared from more than 200 before to 1200; in Chengdu, after the acquisition of Yicheng, Lianjia stores reached 300, basically forming a "unipolar" pattern. Zuohui borrows the advantage of offline channels to carry out decadent expansion, which can not be compared with Internet real estate brokerage companies.

Polishing means that during this period, Lianjia continued to polish his core infrastructure-- the real housing database "real estate dictionary" and the "ACN mechanism" of the cooperation mode between brokers, and these two sharp weapons, on the one hand, helped Lianjia "attack the city and pull out the stockade", on the other hand, it also had a substantial change impact on the industry.

(3) the "KE Holdings Inc. era" since 2018

Lianjia (KE Holdings Inc. House-hunting Company) before 2018 is already a leader in the real estate brokerage industry in terms of the total amount of real estate transactions and the number of offline stores, but based on its "heavy" direct operation model, the capital market has had concerns about its future growth space and valuation. in addition, Lianjia's founder Zuo Hui and his senior management team also firmly believe that from the perspective of the future development of the industry. Lianjia should open up his core competence and empower the whole industry. Therefore, in early 2018, after years of polishing, Lianjia officially launched the KE Holdings Inc platform. In addition, Zuohui packaged the core assets such as KE Holdings Inc, Lianjia and Deyou into the listed matrix of KE Holdings Inc. Holdings (BEKE.N). Popularly speaking, Zuohui is not satisfied with being the largest and traditional real estate brokerage company, but hopes to build a real estate transaction and service platform and become the infrastructure of the whole industry by virtue of the "real estate dictionary" and ACN mechanism polished in the warring States period. Among them, KE Holdings Inc is similar to JD.com platform, and the Lianjia brand directly under KE Holdings Inc. is equivalent to JD.com 's own store. as for the Deyou brand, which is specially open to third parties, and many third-party real estate brokerage companies are similar to the third-party sellers on the JD.com platform.

So, why do we call 2018 to the present "KE Holdings Inc. era"? After all, KE Holdings Inc still faces fierce and strong competition.

My core view is that KE Holdings Inc has become the general trend, has become the absolute leader of the industry, although there are still challengers, new players and cross-border giants continue to emerge, but KE Holdings Inc's king position will not be easily shaken.

The main support is based on two points, one: compared with other real estate brokerage companies, KE Holdings Inc has a stronger core competitiveness. In the fierce industry competition, KE Holdings Inc will rely on the two sharp weapons it spent years to build, namely, the real estate dictionary and the ACN mechanism, so as to gain a larger market share, because the real estate brokerage industry is more competitive. The core of winning is also inseparable from excellent brokers and 100% of the real housing supply, the so-called popular person wins the world. For a detailed competition analysis, you can refer to my previous "I just want to know, KE Holdings Inc (BEKE), what is the value of ADS per share?" ".

Second: KE Holdings Inc, not only creates value for itself, the core logic is that KE Holdings Inc first creates value for the industry, and then naturally enjoys the dividends brought by the industry as a platform. Specifically, KE Holdings Inc accelerates the release of platform network effects through the leading global ACN (broker collaboration network). China has a vast market for real estate trading services, but due to weak infrastructure, it is always difficult to effectively improve the experience and efficiency of practitioners and consumers. To this end, KE Holdings Inc. built an ACN (broker Cooperation Network) to redefine the relationship between service providers. As the underlying operating system of KE Holdings Inc. platform, ACN connects different brands and brokers to help service providers cooperate efficiently and share success, so as to provide customers with higher quality and more convenient services. According to the prospectus, ACN has significantly improved the efficiency of the real estate trading industry: in 2019, more than 70 per cent of the stock transactions on KE Holdings Inc. 's platform were done through cross-store cooperation with ACN. In terms of GTV per store in 2019, KE Holdings Inc. 's efficiency has reached 1.6 times the industry average, and the average GTV of stores connected to KE Holdings Inc. 's platform has also increased from 10.9 million yuan in the second half of 2018 to 20.3 million yuan in the second half of 2019, an increase of 86.2 percent.

It is precisely because KE Holdings Inc solved the disgusting competition among domestic real estate brokers through the ACN mechanism, and changed to cooperation with the same interests, which directly improved the efficiency of real estate agents on all sides of the platform, thus successfully resolved the "siege of Guangding" incident, that is, other real estate brokerage companies boycotted the KE Holdings Inc platform.

After the KE Holdings Inc platform was officially launched in April 2018, Zuo Hui and KE Holdings Inc. were questioned inside and outside the industry for being "both judges and contestants" because they were both platforms and Lianjia brands personally "off the market" to do real estate brokerage business. so two months after the KE Holdings Inc platform was launched. 58.com, who was directly offended against his interests, jointly held the "Industry-wide Real Estate Oath Conference" with Central Real Estate, I Love my Family, 21st Century Real Estate, Central Interconnection, Wheat Field Real Estate and other real estate brokerage companies, announcing that he would never be self-employed, which was interpreted by the outside world as the formal establishment of the "Anti-KE Holdings Inc. Alliance". After integrating Anjuke and Marketplace, 58.com has become the largest real estate information platform in China, and proprietary business has been rarely involved, but shortly after the end of the "Industry-wide Real Housing Pledge Conference", 58.com bought a stake in I love my family, one of Lianjia's biggest competitors. All the measures show that KE Holdings Inc was under a lot of pressure at that time. After all, the last SouFun (now renamed Fang Holdings Limited American Depositary Shares), which did so, gradually fell behind after the transformation failed because of resistance from large and small companies in the industry.

Compared with SouFun in 2014, fortunately, KE Holdings Inc's basic skills are too solid, and its real estate dictionary and ACN mechanism, which cost a lot of time, energy and money to build, are sharp tools to attract third-party real estate agents. KE Holdings Inc. successfully disintegrated the offensive of his opponent, the May 8 Group, by working with members of the so-called "anti-KE Holdings Inc. alliance". On April 16, 2019, 21st Century Real Estate announced its arrival at KE Holdings Inc. The two sides will start from the pilot cities to promote national business cooperation to achieve data and resource sharing, and it can achieve cross-brand cooperation with other brokerage brands stationed in KE Holdings Inc. platform, including direct brand Lianjia, franchise brand Deyou, as well as many small and medium-sized brokerage brands. The cooperation between the two sides also means that the camp of the 58 alliance is beginning to split. On August 19, 2019, another member of the 58 Alliance, Central Interconnection and KE Holdings Inc, announced that they had reached a business cooperation in housing, customer and operation, so as to achieve data and resource sharing. Since then, the 58 Alliance's attempt to contain and boycott KE Holdings Inc has largely failed.

Looking up, KE Holdings Inc no longer has any real competitors, which is why this article calls the real estate brokerage industry from 2018 to the present "KE Holdings Inc. era".

Third, the current competition pattern of the real estate brokerage industry: more than one super, the competition in the industry is very fierce.

Today, China's real estate brokerage industry as a whole presents a super multi-strong, fierce competition pattern, one of which refers to KE Holdings Inc, from the revenue point of view, far ahead of other enterprises, only belongs to the first echelon. How strong refers to the Central Plains Real Estate, I love my family, easy to live in corporate holding, May 8 in the same city, belonging to the second echelon. As for other enterprises, they are classified as the third echelon.

Of course, the division of one super and many strong companies is only based on the existing listed companies in the industry. in fact, China's real estate brokerage companies can be divided into five factions: the first faction: independent faction; the second faction: shell faction; the third faction: 58 faction; the fourth faction: Yiju faction; the fifth faction: Fang Holdings Limited American Depositary Shares.

Specifically, (1) independent factions, as the name implies, mostly refer to real estate agents that fight alone. For example, Zhongyuan Real Estate, a large real estate brokerage company that has not yet been listed, Guochuang High-tech, a regional real estate brokerage company (which owns wholly-owned subsidiaries QFang.com) and Le Youjia, Wachovia Group, the largest listed real estate agency company in Hong Kong, 0733.HK produced by the restructuring of Hefu brilliant Group and Poly in 2018, real estate brokerage SaaS platform-- Fangdd Network Group Ltd., Small and medium-sized real estate brokerage listed companies without strong background For example, 365 net and Fangyuan Housing Group all belong to independent factions.

(2) KE Holdings Inc. refers to a subsidiary of KE Holdings Inc. or a real estate agency that has reached a strategic cooperation with KE Holdings Inc.. At present, shell members have wholly-owned subsidiaries Lianjia & Deyou & KE Holdings Inc. Jinke Holdings, 21st Century China Real Estate (10% owned by KE Holdings Inc.), Central Interconnection (strategic cooperation with KE Holdings Inc.)

(3) the May 8 system refers to the subsidiaries of the May 8 Group, such as Anjuke, the leading real estate information platform in China, or the real estate brokerage company with which it has reached strategic cooperation, such as I love my family (58 holds 8.28%).

(4) E-residence, including E-House Enterprise Holdings (which owns the core assets of the real estate big data platform-Kerry, E-House roommates, etc.) and Leju Holdings Ltd (LEJU.N), because the actual controller behind both companies is Zhou Xin, the founder of E-House. It is worth mentioning that the shareholders behind E-House holding are very luxurious. Country Garden Holdings, Evergrande and Vanke, the top three property developers in China, all hold 12.35 per cent of E-House. The latest news is that BABA will increase its stake in E-House (2048.HK) and may become its second-largest shareholder. In addition, Tencent currently holds 15.6% of Leju Holdings Ltd's shares.

(5) Fang Holdings Limited American Depositary Shares, including Fang Holdings Limited American Depositary Shares (SFUN.N), China Index Holdings Ltd (18.57%) and World Federation Bank (Fang Holdings Limited American Depositary Shares holding 5.33%), in which Fang Holdings Limited American Depositary Shares and China Index Holdings Ltd are all controlled by Mo Tianquan.

In addition to these five factions, there are many new players or challengers trying to shake up the existing competitive landscape in the industry. For example, Yueli, the real estate trading platform of byte beat Holdings, JD.com 's own real estate, one-stop new house purchase platform-Juli Xinfang (GMV up to 30 billion yuan in 2019), real estate intermediary C2C trading platform-Zhen Er.com, real estate Internet sharing brokerage service platform-good house China, real estate trading service platform-Jiwu, and so on.

So, so many real estate brokers listed companies, how to choose it?

This paper believes that investors can think from the following two dimensions: (1) core competitiveness, that is, whether the real estate brokerage companies you like can maintain or even expand their market share in the fierce competition in the future, this paper has conducted an in-depth analysis; (2) performance forward-looking indicators-the number of real estate agents and its changing trend, as for this point, limited to space, will not be carried out in depth.

Fourth, the prospect of the future: count romantic people, but also look at the present

Looking back on the past and looking forward to the future of China's real estate brokerage industry, the only thing that is certain is that only companies that can really contribute real value to consumers, real estate agents and the industry can stand out and have the last laugh. After all, the competition in the real estate brokerage industry is so fierce that if an enterprise does not have enough core competitiveness, how can it talk about the future? And KE Holdings Inc, which has defeated countless competitors all the way, is undoubtedly the best verification of the above logic.

KE Holdings Inc. officially went public on August 13, and it is only a step for its future development. after all, the track it is in is big enough and its imagination space is wide enough. A few flirtatious people, but also look at today, KE Holdings Inc. 's founder Zuohui and the core executive team is indeed a business hero, after all, KE Holdings Inc. in the real estate brokerage industry, the competition is too fierce. In addition, enterprises that can win in a highly homogenized industry are all worth looking at. Haidilao International Holding and SF Holdings before KE Holdings Inc. are all of this type.

Finally, I would like to sigh that Tencent is still the biggest winner. If you also know that Tencent is the second largest shareholder of KE Holdings Inc., the largest shareholder of May 8th City, and the third largest shareholder of Leju Holdings Ltd!