In February 2026, a Beijing tenant, Mr. Wang, received a compensation payment of nearly 10,000 yuan. "The toilet in the rental apartment cracked, and my thigh was cut," Mr. Wang stated. "I initially expected a dispute with the landlord, but I was surprised that Carefree Rental covered so much." Mr. Wang benefited from the property and personal protection service offered by KE Holdings' Carefree Rental program. Provided the loss meets specific conditions, compensation is paid within the defined liability and coverage limits. According to data from KE Holdings, by mid-April 2026, the Carefree Rental service had disbursed over 200 million yuan in cumulative compensation, covering both service disputes and rental accidents.
As of April 2026, KE Holdings' Carefree Rental service has been implemented in 13 cities, including Beijing and Shanghai. Over four years, it has provided compensation guarantees for more than 500,000 instances of service disputes or rental accidents. In August 2025, a water valve burst in a rental property owned by Ms. Li in Wuhan, damaging the flooring and furniture. "I accept responsibility for the burst valve," Ms. Li said. "However, the tenant didn't inform us at the time and simply wiped up the water. Over time, the mold and warping of the floor and furniture worsened. Furthermore, the issue wasn't identified during the Carefree Rental move-out inspection." Following her feedback, KE Holdings' Carefree Rental team promptly investigated. They acknowledged a lapse in the move-out inspection process, which failed to detect the water leakage risk promptly. As the tenant opted for legal proceedings to determine compensation, a lengthy process was anticipated. To prevent further losses for the property owner, KE Holdings proactively advanced nearly two-thirds of the repair costs. Ultimately, Ms. Li renewed her contract with Carefree Rental. "I chose Carefree Rental initially to avoid disputes with tenants," she commented. "KE Holdings admitting fault and taking responsibility gives me great peace of mind."
However, resolving individual cases does not signify a fully perfected system capability. To maintain service operations, the platform has had to establish a complex compensation response mechanism. Wang Tao, a Carefree Rental manager, noted that challenging issues like Ms. Li's water leakage case are not uncommon. However, compensation involving thousands or tens of thousands of yuan requires relatively complex liability determination and handling, needing clear accountability from both legal and service perspectives. "For many situations, there are clear standards within the company's internal procedures and contract terms," Wang Tao admitted. "But daily rental issues primarily involve small compensations. About sixty to seventy percent of the rental problems my colleagues and I encounter can be resolved with payments under 200-300 yuan. Examples include replacing remote controls, reissuing access cards, or replacing batteries in smart locks. For such amounts, to resolve issues quickly, the company delegates authority directly to the frontline teams."
"The service industry cannot satisfy all parties in every single transaction," explained Xu Lei, who oversees product operations for the Carefree Rental platform service. "Rental properties present numerous issues and unexpected events, and the demands of clients and property owners vary widely." Indeed, complaints and criticisms about "Carefree Rental" persist on social media. Some property owners report inadequate property maintenance and delayed compensation for damaged items. Tenants complain about issues like water leakage, noise, incomplete rectification of property defects, and cumbersome move-out and deposit refund processes. An industry analyst pointed out, "The most significant characteristic of decentralized rentals is their non-standardized nature. The market contains countless properties with diverse conditions, renovations, ages, and varying landlord and tenant circumstances. This easily leads to ambiguous liability definitions, a common industry-wide challenge." If management platforms strictly adhere to contract terms for liability, it might result in higher dispute rates and lower customer satisfaction. Conversely, assuming additional responsibility significantly increases costs. Industry observers believe that "striking the right balance is extremely challenging and tests operational and service capabilities." Xu Lei, with years of experience in Carefree Rental service operations, stated, "Customer complaints are a mirror reflecting a company's service level. We are trying to deconstruct each non-standard case in detail to develop increasingly standardized solutions." In his view, only by handling each compensation case fairly and reasonably can more certainty be provided to the rental service, ultimately benefiting more users.
Beyond mere monetary compensation, and contrasting with the contentious court of public opinion, two sets of data objectively illustrate positive trends in the Carefree Rental service from another angle. The first set comes from the customer complaint resolution team: the incidence rate of customer complaints for Carefree Rental has decreased from a peak of 0.8% in 2023 to between 0.2% and 0.3% in 2025. Similarly, satisfaction with complaint handling is close to 90%. The second set of data comes from the contracting team: in 2025, the tenant renewal rate exceeded 58%, and the property owner renewal rate surpassed 74%. Examining the operational strategy reveals that the optimization of complaint metrics coincides with a series of adjustments made to the service system. In terms of service execution, KE Holdings' Carefree Rental has delineated six distinct roles, with dedicated personnel responsible for each stage. For instance, online managers are available 7x24 hours to handle client issues, ensuring service requests even late at night are addressed, with an average of about 6,000 inquiries handled nightly. Furthermore, specialized processes and training have been established for frequent complex issues like water leakage to enhance service capabilities. Regarding service processes, Carefree Rental not only utilizes AI assistants to improve efficiency and quickly resolve a vast number of basic queries but has also implemented an "emotion radar" within service chat groups. This tool analyzes conversational sentiment to identify potential service shortcomings early and proactively resolve them.
Although core service metrics like complaint rates continue to improve, the challenge of scaling service quality persists as the portfolio of managed properties expands to 700,000 units. The sheer increase in volume brings ongoing challenges. For example, how can the system be made more efficient to serve a larger consumer base effectively? How can contract terms be better communicated before signing? Perhaps revisiting the nature of disputes themselves offers a solution. According to KE Holdings data, over 50% of tenant complaints relate to property quality. On the owner side, nearly 30% of complaints stem from contract disputes. This indicates that, beyond providing compensation after the fact, the fundamental way to reduce disputes lies in improving property quality beforehand and clarifying rights and responsibilities during the contract signing process. Navigating the non-standardized waters of decentralized rentals, KE Holdings is attempting to use the "200 million yuan paid out in compensation" to chart a course towards standardization. The success of this approach will significantly reshape the future service boundaries and liability standards of the industry.
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