Ziroom

Ziroom is a leader in rental platforms that sign long-term leases with individual landlords before matching their homes to appropriate tenants via customised algorithms. The platforms make money on the premiums they charge tenants over the rents they pay to the landlords.

Ziroom has received investment from a range of recognised names, including Softbank, which invested $1 billion in late 2019. But the race for market share in the sector has created cash flow problems for some of the platforms and the situation worsened with the onset of Covid-19, forcing Ziroom’s main rival Danke to default on payments to landlords later in the year.

Ziroom seems to have fared better than most. As of the end of 2020 it managed the homes of nearly 500,000 owners in nine cities in China, renting them out to about 3 million tenants.

For more on changes in China’s residential rental market, here’s one of WiC’s Talking Points from 2018.

Sponsored by HSBC.

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