Chinese real estate broker livestreams home sales on social media

When Covid-19 appeared in China, Wang Shujuan saw an opportunity in using his phone to livestream images of houses for buyers.

Wang’s Douyin channel, China’s version of TikTok, opened in April 2020 and now has 73,000 followers. Now, with the real estate market in a slump, Wang, 39, is betting that livestreaming will be a way for her to win over customers.

"The real estate market is not good right now, but there are still ways to make money. If you don't livestream, you won't sell any houses," said Wang.

As home sales plummet and prices fall in major markets like Shanghai, agents and real estate agents are being forced to get creative. While livestreaming is not a new phenomenon in China, it is a rare bright spot in the real estate market.

According to a report by a consulting firm supported by ByteDance - Douyin's parent company - there are now more than 2 million people livestreaming about real estate on Douyin. The figure in 2022 is double the previous year.

Wang Shujuan during a livestream. Photo: Wang Shujuan — Wang Shujuan during a livestream. Photo: *Wang Shujuan*

Some brokers tour luxury homes for viewers. Others perform comedy routines, dance, or even dress up as celebrities. Wang opts for a more professional approach, sitting at a desk, analyzing market trends like a TV news anchor.

"Livestreaming is becoming more and more necessary," said Georg Chmiel, chairman of real estate firm Juwai-IQI, who said the method is especially popular with foreign buyers, who cannot visit the property in person.

Chinese tech giants are capitalizing on the shift. Last year, short-video app Kuaishou Technology launched a real estate services hub called Ideal Homes, which displays homes for sale and livestreams by city. The total value of home transactions on the app exceeded 10 billion yuan last year.

“We will focus on online services for real estate,” a ByteDance spokesperson told Bloomberg.

Still, livestreamers like Wang are seen as overly optimistic in a sluggish real estate market. For most buyers, in-person viewings are key to closing deals.

However, China’s property market shows no signs of recovering from the crisis. Home sales fell 43% in July from the previous month, the lowest monthly figure in nearly six years. Prices also fell for the second month in a row.

Alicia Garcia Herrero, an economist at Natixis, said demand for homes would increase if people believed prices would rise. But that hasn’t happened yet.

As consumer confidence wanes, debt-laden real estate firms are increasingly worried. ByteDance reports that more than 80% of China’s top 200 real estate firms have opened accounts on Douyin.

To clear inventory, real estate companies in cities from Hangzhou to Xi’an have launched a variety of promotions, from free renovations to free gold and even free pigs. Some have gone even further, advertising “free down payment” and “buy one get one free” deals. This is how they circumvent local government regulations prohibiting steep discounts.

Wang focuses on Huain, a city in eastern Jiangsu Province. Her livestreams typically last two hours, introducing vacant apartments, reviewing housing policies, and assessing the advantages of each area. After her first livestream in April 2020, she quit her job at a real estate company a few months later to specialize in selling houses on Douyin. She now livestreams four times a week, sometimes every day.

Her efforts have paid off. Over the past two years, Wang has sold 10 to 16 apartments a month, earning more than 2 million yuan ($278,000) a year.

This year, despite the market still being down, she has sold more than 40 apartments. However, the majority of her income now comes from commissions, as well as marketing and training services for real estate companies.

"Whether you're an independent agent or a real estate agent, or you're a real estate company yourself, you need customers from livestreaming. Through livestreaming, I can reach customers and the information is also communicated in two ways. That's how you build trust," Wang concluded.

Ha Thu (according to Bloomberg)

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