After viewing 40 apartments on the web and touring 10 personally in the spring, Sicheng Wan finally selected an US$3, 1000 (RM13, 420)-a-month one-bedroom in a luxury constructing in Jersey City, New Jersey, an one-transfer commute from their graduate studies with Columbia. The leasing platform the Chinese language expatriate used: Ehomie.
By offering an all-in-one Internet service, Ehomie New York Inc is like a combination of StreetEasy, Zillow, and Fb Marketplace for Chinese renters, using an inlayed application in the social media marketing app WeChat along with a separate brokerage service on its website.
The company targets abroad Chinese students and new graduates planning to rent, sublet, or co-sign an apartment, as well as sell and buy second-hand furniture in sixteen cities across United states, the UK, and Quotes.
“We’re creating a community for abroad Chinese students, ” says Ehomie’s founder, Felix Gui, throughout a tour of the company’s Times Square head office. Gui started Ehomie with US$100, 500 (RM446, 880) of his own money in 2016 and says it now brings in US$5mil (RM22. 34mil) annually in revenue, having an average annual growth rate of 30%. The 100-person organization sees up to a few, 000 daily active users on its WeChat platform, as well as the brokerage service closes regarding 100 to three hundred rental deals each month, Gui estimates.
Yet Ehomie’s future could be in jeopardy, as the US loses its allure for Chinese language students because of Covid-19 travel restrictions plus geopolitical spats between US and China and taiwan. In the first six months of 2022, the US issued 31, 055 F-1 visas in order to Chinese nationals, down from 64, 261 for the same period within 2019, according to data from the US Condition Department, reported from the Wsj .
“Compared to last year, we do see less Chinese students arriving at the US, ” Gui says, noting international students are an important part of the company’s business strategy. “So whilst trying to do well on this existing business on the one hand, we’re developing brand new services. ”
Ehomie now consults 500 to 1, 500 customers monthly upon buying real estate plus plans to your communal living space, hiring a collection of apartments plus subletting the fully furnished rooms to short-term renters.
It’s also trying to become a concierge associated with sorts of Chinese-speaking families. Under the name Shi Yi Da Dao, which usually translates to “11th Avenue”, Ehomie offerings include installing dividers intended for flex bedrooms, promoting new furniture within sets, cleaning solutions, airport pickups and drop-offs, and international shipping between China and taiwan and the US. “From a marketing perspective, we want the 11th Ave. to be impartial, ” says Gui, so that even the competitors can send clients to it.
These services is surely an essential pivot in order to garner repeat company, especially as Ehomie’s WeChat integration has proven to be a personalisation success but revenue failure.
In case you click open Ehomie application on WeChat and set your location to New York, the company’s biggest market, you are able to scroll through numerous listings posted by Chinese-speaking users seeking subletters or searching for roommates to co-sign a lease. Users must speak Mandarin to navigate the platform. A typical listing features a description of the home, a floorplan image of the apartment, and videos of the areas, sometimes coupled with pictures of the building’s lobby, gym, and roof swimming pool.
Once they’ve seen a listing they like, a person can contact who owns the post by friending them upon WeChat or sending a direct message via Ehomie. Yang Zhou, an electrical engineering Ph level. D. student at New York University, provides used Ehomie to both sublet to and from other people.
He admits that being integrated along with WeChat hasn’t just made the whole process easier and smoother but also provided a safe space regarding subletters, allowing them to easily simplify the renting process, oftentimes by having a spoken agreement and skipping a sublease altogether. WeChat, the most popular messages app in The far east, dominates almost every element of a person’s every day online existence.
“The trust originates from the fact that people are publishing their WeChat connections in public, ” says Zhou, who views his WeChat account as a part of his personal information. The platform requires customers to register accounts having a government-issued ID number and asks an existing user to verify the registrant’s identification. “Once you put this out there, it gives everybody the impression that you are serious about renting, instead of having some other motives. ”
Nevertheless , such trust can undercut Ehomie’s revenue opportunities. As a free of charge marketplace, the company’s WeChat platform is not bringing in revenue, due to the fact users can checklist their properties for free, sidestep the app, and make transactions on their own. Ehomie’s prior efforts to keep money flow on the platform and charging a small fee also didn’t catch on; the particular brokerage sector continues to be profitable.
It’s too early to tell if Ehomie’s new endeavours will pay off. Nevertheless, by existing mostly on WeChat in support of available in Mandarin, Ehomie has, by default, turn out to be an exclusive go-to leasing platform for Chinese internationals. Companies for example USWOO, owned by Overseas Student Program Corp, and Uhomes are also vying for that position, but Ehomie’s WeChat platform provides amassed such a sizable following that some of its competitors furthermore list postings on it.
“The attributes listed on Ehomie provide the kind of leasing information that hit the sweet spot for Chinese international college students and those who just entered the job market, ” says Zhou. Compared to Facebook rental groups, StreetEasy, plus Zillow, Ehomie provides fewer listings, but they’re more likely to become viable options for a Chinese student.
This “sweet spot” means luxury buildings, which make up the majority of listings on Ehomie, often with “flex” layouts where the family room has been sectioned away from into a bedroom to lessen costs; in Manhattan a true one-bedroom can certainly top US$4, 500 (RM17, 878) monthly.
Over the past 5 years, Chinese learners coming to the US have got higher budgets, US$1, 500-US$1, 800 (RM6, 703-RM8, 043) typically, which is a 25% raise compared to 2017, according to Gui. For them, the 24/7 doorman, mailroom, modern utilities like a gym, a living room, and basketball courts, and a safe neighborhood close to grocery stores and public transportations are all important – and sometimes necessary – for living.
Rising hate criminal offenses against Asians “is having an impact” on where Chinese language expatriates choose to reside, Zhou says. “We like to live collectively in an area where there are other Chinese people. ” – Bloomberg