Editor | Zhang Xiaoling
When Li Xuefeng, a native of Northeast China, came to Shenzhen from his hometown more than 10 years ago, he never thought that he would become a "real estate influencer".
He considers himself a person who spreads knowledge about real estate investment. On April 8, he was reported, which alerted seven departments in Shenzhen and jointly launched an investigation.
Behind these complaints and reports, Shenfangli has established a mature "real estate speculation" industry chain through a fan base of thousands of people and a small program, and with the help of multiple financial tools, Controlling the market and raising prices is walking on the edge of the law.
From a decorator to a "real estate speculator", Li Xuefeng has established his own "successful learning for buying a house", attracting those who are eager to make a fortune by buying a house, and together constitute this real estate industry. In the era of huge profits, an absurd yet real picture.
There is nothing wrong with buying a house legally, and there is nothing wrong with investing in real estate. But when some of their actions are suspected of breaking the law, that's a different story. In the official notice, Shenfangli (Li Xuefeng) is suspected of instigating house buyers to defraud house purchase qualifications, illegally raise funds, and obtain business loans. The investigation is currently underway.
The birth of "Big V"
Shen Fangli's real name is Li Xuefeng, a native of Dalian, Liaoning, and he is 41 years old.
In his own account, he graduated from the Department of Architecture of Xi'an Jiaotong University and was inspired by the TV series "Foreign Girl". At the age of 24, he broke away from the system and went south to Shenzhen.
He said that he had worked as a draftsman, opened a design company, and a catering company, and his monthly income reached 60,000 yuan in his early 30s. I bought my first house in Shenzhen in 2009. The down payment was only one month's salary. I bought a house as soon as I earned money.
But among the fans, Li Xuefeng introduced himself as borrowing 50,000 yuan to start buying a house in 2009.
Neither version has high credibility. According to Wall Street Insights, during his first few years in Shenzhen, from 2009 to 2017, Li Xuefeng was only engaged in the construction-related "floor slab" business, and later became the contractor of the decoration team.
In his QQ photo album, there are still pictures of many decoration projects he has done, including duplexes, hotels, hair salons, etc., and he even went to Changsha to do business.
He changed his name to Shen Fangli and began to play the role of a "real estate speculator". Industrial and commercial information shows that Li Xuefeng currently serves as the legal representative of 6 companies, most of which were registered after 2013, and most of them are construction engineering companies and catering companies.
On May 24, 2019, Li Xuefeng established Shenfangli Information Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. and registered trademarks such as "Shenfangli". But on August 24, 2020, Li Xuefeng withdrew from the company and the major shareholder was changed to Li Peng.
Among these companies, there is another name "Liu Wei" who is quite familiar. The two began to cooperate since Li Xuefeng's "falling on the floor" era. When the house of "7 Crab Sisters" was foreclosed on last year, it was Liu Wei who bought the property for 6.6 million yuan.
Li Xuefeng’s collaborators also include Zhang Fan, whose Weibo name is @美AMA陈小春. She is a mother and baby blogger with many fans.
Li Xuefeng’s story of “entering the industry” is not new. In recent years, there have been many real estate investment “mentors” like him active in different cities in China.
"House Speculation" Industry Chain
Li Xuefeng sells "House Buying Tips" and "Success Learning". After cooperating with Zhang Fan, he began to recruit members. The unit price of "V+" membership is 3,980 yuan per person, and cradle members need to pay an additional 9,800 yuan.
After becoming a member of Cradle, the Shenzhen real estate management team will make a house purchase plan for them. If the funds are insufficient, they will be matched to buy a house together. The services provided include collecting down payments, solving home purchase qualifications, or buying a house in partnership, choosing a property with guaranteed income, solving post-purchase loans, future monthly payments, etc.
In July last year, a small program called "Fangli" was launched, and the relevant functions are only available to members of Shenzhen Fangli Cradle.
In the mini program, there is "Pareto Value", which is equivalent to a P2P lending platform, a "product hall" for online real estate transactions, and a "share hall" that allows members to trade real estate shares.
"Pareto value" means that members can earn interest by depositing temporarily unused money, and those who are short of money can borrow it. This feature was not offline until March 5 this year.
The product hall is an intermediary recommended by the Shenzhen real estate management team, recommending relevant areas and properties to members. People familiar with the matter said that real estate transactions in the area designated by Shenzhen Real Estate Management Co., Ltd. are intensive. "A new agent for a Shell franchise store in Hongshan District sold more than 60 units in a month."
These properties are clustered in Qianhai, Hongshan and Baozhong areas, including Nord Holiday Garden, Zhonghai Sunshine Rose Garden, Fantasia Flower Township, etc.
Among them, many properties have experienced rapid growth in the past three years. For example, Fantasia Flower County has increased from 66,800 yuan/square meter to 143,200 yuan/square meter in the past three years; Nord Holiday Garden has increased from 66,800 yuan/square meter to 143,200 yuan/square meter. In January 2017, the unit price rose from 77,300 yuan to 167,900 yuan.
The "share hall" allows the "shares" of real estate to be transferred among members. Cradle members publish recruitment advertisements, looking for partners to purchase real estate together, and hold corresponding proportions of real estate shares according to the proportion of capital contribution, and are held by relevant personnel on their behalf; after the house purchase is successful, Cradle members can invest in the real estate shares they hold. transfer.
As a result, "real estate securitization", which has been difficult to achieve in China, was also realized in his case. Through joint stock partnerships, members with only 150,000 yuan can participate in the game of leveraging real estate worth hundreds of billions.
Wall Street News found that this mini program has been removed from the shelves and cannot be opened.
Risks of leveraged real estate speculation
Li Xuefeng has always advocated that after joining as a member, you will definitely make money and achieve financial freedom. In a Weibo Q&A in 2019, he said:
If you (the questioner) become a member in the middle of the year and borrow one or two million, you can invest in a property in Shenzhen according to our recommended location. The 5 million real estate has made at least 20% profit so far... without any risk. All members who bought a house made money.
However, the above Q&A has been deleted, and he has recently changed his tune: I will not promise anyone that I will make money for sure.
According to a survey by Wall Street Insights, not many members of Shenzhen Real Estate Investment Management Co., Ltd. actually make money.
Last year, Cradle member "Sister 7 Crab" Wei Jing, who went to court against Shenfang, was one of the failed cases.
Without a place to buy a house and enough funds for a down payment, the "Shenzhen Real Estate Manager" and his team guided Wei Jing to obtain the qualifications to buy a house through a fake marriage, and then borrowed money from relatives, friends, and small loan companies to raise the down payment.
However, after paying the money and getting the property certificate, we encountered policy changes. The property can only be applied for a business loan 6 months after the transfer.
In order to borrow funds, Wei Jing was introduced by the small loan company to borrow funds from other loan companies and small loan companies.
But in the end, Wei Jing was unable to pay the interest on the high amount of loan advances, and her capital chain was broken. Just one month after the transfer of the property, the small loan company that originally borrowed the money took her to court, and the property was seized. , the bank account was frozen and the house was foreclosed.
Wei Jing said that the apparent loss exceeded 2 million yuan.
Industry insiders pointed out that Shenfangli’s routine is not new. The key is the use of leverage. Through leverage, fans who originally had no ability to buy a house are allowed to buy a house; then through the so-called guaranteed profit model, the house prices of designated properties are increased, and finally others are allowed to take over.
Last year, the Shenzhen Real Estate Agency Association warned of the risks of institutionalized real estate speculation chains and banned intermediaries from participating in it.
Li Yujia, chief researcher of the Guangdong Provincial Housing Policy Research Center, pointed out that Shenzhen’s property market problems , first is the leverage issue, and then is the supply and demand issue. As long as the leverage is under control, the Shenzhen property market will inevitably cool down.
Mentor or liar?
House prices have risen in the past few years, especially in cities like Shenzhen. People are convinced of the argument that "house prices will always rise". There are many people who want to realize their dream of getting rich by buying a house.
People in Shenzhen have a deeper understanding of houses than other cities. Li Yujia believes that to some extent, Shenzhen has been a city driven by financial assets in the past 17 years, and real estate is the largest financial asset.
On the one hand, real estate is a retreat for entity owners; on the other hand, real estate is a financing tool.
Taking advantage of people's psychology of getting rich suddenly and their desire for financial assets, Li Xuefeng developed his house buying philosophy and operating routines, and has a huge fan base. However, many people who originally did not have the conditions to buy a house were involved.
Despite the suspicion of inducing house purchases and despite the failure cases, Shenfangli still seems to have many "hardcore fans" on Weibo. The Wall Street Journal tried to paint a picture of them.
@美马陈小春, who collaborated with Li Xuefeng to “harvest” fans, is a mother and baby parenting blogger, attracting many single mothers and housewives.
She often sells anxiety or shows off her wealth, and shares news and updates about buying a house. For example, my assistant is a full-time mother with no income. "Last year she only had 10,000 yuan, and a year later she already has tens of millions of assets." Now she has bought a house and won; she also often posts her house details on Weibo to let fans know They are envious.
Many of these fans later became fans of Shenfangli and followed him to invest in buying houses.
Ms. Chen, a member of Cradle, said that in the Shenfangli fan group, many women are confused in relationships. While discussing the pain of marriage every day, they always want to find something to prove themselves.
From thousands of Weibo questions and answers, we can see that some young people who have not been working for a long time and grassroots people with low income are also eager to buy a house.
A fan who was preparing to settle in Shenzhen and buy a house in Shenzhen asked Li Xuefeng, "How can a young man with no savings of 1,500 per month manage himself well?"
Li Xuefeng's reply was, yes Make yourself look like a "rich person" and take money from the future. After running your own business for a period of time, you will be able to have funds as a down payment for a deep-seated house, and through continuous operation, you will own more properties. The so-called operating oneself means doing business, applying for credit cards, and carrying out various fund lending.
Although it is incredible, Li Xuefeng attracted a large number of believers. At its peak, Shenfangli had more than 1,000 "V+ members" and its seven WeChat groups were almost full.
To this day, on Shen Fangli’s Weibo, we often see some confused housewives. After he was investigated, many people wondered, “Why are all the bright lights extinguished like this?”
But more and more members and the public believe that Li Xuefeng is a liar.
The aforementioned cradle member said that after paying the fee, she contacted Xiaoyu, a real estate manager assistant, to express her wish to buy a house. Xiaoyu recommended an agent to her, and the agent showed her a suite in Nord Holiday Garden. The price has increased by more than 3 million yuan in one year, and more than 80 square meters will be sold for more than 10 million yuan, which is too expensive.
She said she no longer wanted to buy a house and asked for a refund of her membership fee, but was rejected. Li Xuefeng said to her, "A few words with me are worth so much money."
This member said that at this time, he deeply felt that he had been cheated.
During the investigation
Li Xuefeng was scared.
On the night when seven departments jointly issued an investigation, he disbanded six WeChat groups and began to delete a series of Weibo posts. Sensitive words such as Bao Earning, Agent Holding, and Pareto were all deleted.
Industry insiders believe that Shenzhen Real Estate Investment Co., Ltd.’s real estate speculation chain is operating in a legal gray area.
In the past, there was no legal prohibition on buying a house in partnership and entrusting an agent to hold it, and the agreement would be judged to be valid.
However, at the end of 2020, the Supreme People's Court made a precedent: if someone buys a house in his name to circumvent the purchase restriction policy, the contract should be deemed invalid.
Zhang Maorong, chief lawyer of Xinrong Lawyers Team and Guangdong Bay Lawyers Alliance, believes that the Supreme Court’s judgment has guiding significance for courts across the country. The risk of entrusted holding is getting bigger and bigger. If there is a dispute over holding in the future, the court is very likely to find that the holding agreement is invalid and will not even rule to support the transfer request of the borrower.
The risk of members of Shenzhen Real Estate Investment Co., Ltd. buying a house in partnership is even greater.
Lawyer Wang Yuchen, director of Beijing Jinliu Law Firm, pointed out that Shenfangli may have instigated others to defraud others to obtain house purchase qualifications, which is obviously a violation of the purchase restriction policy, and the methods used are illegal and illegal. Once verified, they will be As a result, the relevant home buyers were disqualified from purchasing homes and signing online, and their efforts fell short.
In addition, Wang Yuchen said that the suspected illegal fund-raising behavior, once verified, is likely to violate the criminal law, and relevant personnel may also be subject to criminal penalties.
Zeng Jie, senior partner of Guangqiang Law Firm and director of the Defense and Research Center for Illegal Fund-raising Cases, believes that the Pareto value function launched by Shenzhen Real Estate Law Firm is currently the most sensitive function.
Zeng Jie said that as long as there are more than 30 depositors in this function and there is clear evidence of the commitment to guarantee principal and interest, the minimum standard for filing a criminal case will be met. The only question is whether it is illegal fund-raising or illegal absorption of public deposits, or Other issues require further investigation and evidentiary conclusions.
A full-time lawyer at Guangdong Tiansui Law Firm@Bay Area Real Estate Lawyer said that the function of Pareto value is obviously to raise funds for lending, but it is just packaged with a high-level concept.
@ Bay Area Real Estate Lawyer pointed out that Shenzhen Real Estate had more than 3,000 members in Cradle alone in 2019. With such a large number of people involved, it complies with the requirements of "raising funds from unspecified objects" and "publicity to the outside world." Features.
The incident is still unfolding. On April 14, a screenshot circulated among banks, guarantee companies, and intermediaries showed that the recent supervision of Shenzhen real estate agents for real estate speculation is too risky, including but not limited to the related personnel business and related real estate business of "Shenzhen real estate agents" Acceptance has been suspended, including Li Xuefeng, Liu Wei, and Zhang Fan.