◎ Li Jia Nong
Recently, the rental housing market has received attention due to individual financial incidents, and words such as "fund security", "separate account management" and "information transparency" have suddenly appeared in public discussions. It is of course important to ensure the safety of funds, and transparency is an indispensable governance principle in a mature leasing market. However, a question worth thinking about is: when matters that are originally basic requirements for daily governance are repeatedly amplified, emphasized or even become the main focus of propaganda, is it increasing market trust, or may it create more uneasiness in the opposite direction?
Recently, the rental housing market has attracted attention due to individual financial incidents, and words such as "fund security", "separate account management" and "information transparency" have suddenly appeared in public discussions; diagram. (File photo)
Renting a residence is a long-term contractual relationship that relies heavily on trust. When the landlord hands over the residence for rent or management, he is concerned about whether the rent can be obtained stably and whether the residence can be properly maintained; the tenant is concerned about the security of the deposit, the stability of the contract, the responsibility for repairs, and the rights to live in it. Because of this, clear accounting, clear use of funds, traceability of rents and deposits, and the implementation of special accounts or appropriate fund segregation under the requirements of laws, policies, or contracts are the governance foundations that professional leasing services should have.
In other words, transparency is not an additional service but the bottom line.
The problem is that when highly emphatic messages such as "funds are safe," "we have dedicated accounts," and "we are transparent" continue to appear in the market, ordinary landlords and tenants may have another layer of doubt: If these matters need to be announced in such a high-profile manner, does it mean that there is a general financial risk in the entire rental market?
This is the “reverse signaling” problem in risk communication.
For most consumers, business investment, company finance, residential leasing, rent collection and deposit custody are legal and economic relationships of completely different natures. However, in an environment where information spreads rapidly, these concepts are often easily understood interchangeably. Once individual incidents are vaguely linked to rent and deposit security, coupled with a large number of "safety" and "transparency" announcements, local incidents may be magnified and interpreted into a systemic crisis for the entire industry.
As a result, the original hope of sending a message of reassurance may actually increase panic.
Truly mature leasing governance should not rely on "declarative transparency" but should establish "institutional transparency." The so-called institutional transparency means that the flow of funds can be checked, accounting records can be verified, contractual responsibilities are clear, the special account system is actually implemented, and there is a continuous audit and risk supervision mechanism. If transparency is built into the system, it does not need to be proven through massive publicity after an incident occurs.
Truly mature leasing governance should not rely on "declarative transparency" but should establish "institutional transparency." (Drawing by this newspaper)
From the perspective of institutional economics, one of the biggest governance issues in the leasing market is to reduce information asymmetry and transaction risks. Therefore, what policies should really strengthen are rent and deposit management regulations, necessary fund isolation, regular inspections, information disclosure, abnormal warnings, and contract and fund transfer mechanisms when business is interrupted. The market needs a system that can be verified, not more adjectives.
At the same time, lease governance cannot only start from a single interest. What tenants need is deposit security, lease stability and housing security; landlords also need rent payment, building management, breach of contract handling and property rights protection. Any mature leasing system must reduce the risks for both lessors and lessees.
Taiwan's rental housing market is gradually becoming more professional and institutionalized. What needs to be avoided most at this time is to expand individual incidents into distrust in the entire market, let alone allow basic responsibilities that should be implemented on a daily basis to be repackaged into special demands in a crisis.
Transparency is the bottom line and should not be a signal that creates doubts; safety should not rely on repeated declarations but on institutional proof. What is truly worth the effort is to ensure that tenants can live with peace of mind, landlords are willing to rent with confidence, and maintain long-term trust in the entire rental housing market with a verifiable and verifiable governance mechanism.
What is truly worth striving for in Taiwan's rental housing market is to ensure that tenants can live with peace of mind, landlords are willing to rent with confidence, and maintain long-term trust in the entire rental housing market with a verifiable and verifiable governance mechanism; diagram. (File photo)
(Professor, Department of Land Resources, Chinese Culture University)
