Suburban villas were once ideal for middle-class men, and duplex bungalows and large gardens were once the norm for successful people.
However, with the changes in the social environment, the suburban villas in some places have gradually lost their popularity, and the villa, which is a place where the dream of middle-class life is pinned, has become synonymous with desolation and depression.
The light of a military flashlight hit the dilapidated gate, and the once elaborately carved wrought iron pattern on the door edge was faintly visible in the dim sky;
Dusty elongated Lincoln parked in the garage, covered with feral cat footprints, the crystal chandelier in the center of the room fell to the ground, and the scattered ornaments presented an eerie and dilapidated beauty;
The fountains in the courtyard had long since dried up, the plants had become the protagonists of the building, the half-man-tall weeds grew from the roof, the climbing tigers spread all over the outer walls, and the lush shrubs covered the original entrance.
In several popular ruin exploration groups in Douban, you can always see the photos taken by ruins enthusiasts after going to "adventure".
Some of the abandoned villa complexes have become well-known punch cards for word of mouth among friends, and several of them are so popular that developers have had to hire security guards to persuade people to come back to find out; and some are just accidentally photographed by posters passing through suburban roads.
Such posts are not only targeted in the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta, Beijing, Xiamen, Sichuan, Chongqing... The adventure of abandoned villas is still popular among enthusiasts in China's first- and second-tier cities.
A pair of parents and two children drive back to their suburban villa, and when the lights come on, the pet shakes its head and comes to greet them — a picture with a hint of a stereotype of the middle class, perhaps the original fantasy of many people about keywords such as wealth, success, and balance between career and family.
Sanya, Hainan Province, has been building a villa area on the seashore since the 1990s
No longer have to share public spaces such as stairways and elevators, there will be no more noise and water leakage upstairs and downstairs, pets and children can run and play in private courtyards freely, and there is no need to drive around in circles to find parking spaces after work every day, people's fantasies about living in villas are always only good.
When real estate developers in Chinese cities really built villas in suburban areas, middle-class families who are eager to move in find that the "small house by house" in the American drama is not satisfied with the water and soil in China.
Most of the wide-space villa groups are located in the suburbs far from the city center, although it is possible to drive home, but the richness of the suburban commercial life circle is far less than that of the urban area, not only the consumption demand such as eating out is not met, sometimes even to buy a vegetable has to drive to the market several kilometers or even more than ten kilometers away.
The decoration, maintenance, cleaning, etc. of the large space property is a lot of money, originally thought that as long as the price of the house itself can enjoy the beautiful small life of the villa after the urban middle class really moved in, only to find that the cost and energy required to maintain a large area of indoor and outdoor space will be exhausting.
When some families choose to move back to the city because of work commuting, children's schooling and other issues, they find that it is extremely difficult to sell suburban villa properties that were once extremely sought after at the opening, in addition to facing high taxes and fees, the depreciation of the price of the property also makes the owners who want to change hands quite headaches.
According to public information, a villa in Xiaoshan, Hangzhou, has dropped its price by more than 83 million from 138 million in 2012, and the second-hand house price has been equivalent to 40% of the original price just ten years later, and few people still ask about it.
When the middle class in the city gradually discovered that the large flat floor in the bustling area was the most suitable type of real estate for work, life and children's education, the once popular suburban villas were gradually abandoned.
Whether it's because the development hasn't been completed successfully, or because the owners are gradually moving away from the neighborhood and being abandoned, or even because of the odd feng shui stories circulating around the city, these villa clusters on the edge of China's cities have become a popular exchange for niche ruin lovers, a base for homeless people, and a shelter for wild animals.
Such is the case in an abandoned area of Shanghai where 60 or 70 single-family villas are gathered. Located in the suburbs of Pudong, which is quite convenient for transportation, surrounded by mature villa settlements and golf courses, the room types are mostly 300-400 square meters of three-storey building structures, which should have been extremely easy to complete the development and sale.
However, just when this villa area is about to enter the stage of exterior wall decoration, the developer said that its capital chain was broken and evacuated. Since then, the rough houses with completed main structures and no doors and windows have been quietly standing on the land less than 40 kilometers away from the city, becoming a low-difficulty level "attraction" that lovers of ruins in Shanghai must visit.
The legend of the feng shui story has also been painted darker and darker after netizens have explored and photographed at night, and the originally valuable property has been completely abandoned because of improper development and the blessing of supernatural stories.
Compared with the abandoned villas of unfinished development, the reasons for the abandonment of villas that have been partially sold and have been abandoned after the existing owners have moved in are more real and thought-provoking. A villa area in Xinyang, Henan Province, was originally sold to the leadership of a local government agency, but later because of the problems of townhouses living, the high cost of renovation, and the inconvenience of transportation and shopping, the owners gathered here moved back to the city one after another, and the last few families left behind also chose to evacuate because of the departure of neighbors.
For similar reasons, even in a land like Hong Kong, vacant villas have appeared on the top of Victoria Peak, where mansions are lined up. According to the observation of visitors, the interior of the villa is neat and intact, and the floor and furniture can be seen to have been carefully taken care of, but because of the replacement of the old and new rich in Hong Kong, the occupancy of mainland buyers and other reasons, the community has changed a group of people, and the house is probably abandoned by the owner because of the loss of its original social attributes.
After the villa area was gradually abandoned, because no one managed and no responsible party finished in time, a large area of idle residential areas played a variety of functions. A villa area with more than 100 abandoned villas in Longgang, Shenzhen, has become a "paradise for the snail dwellers", and the placement of items shows that there are obvious intruders who have used these villas as their temporary residences.
An abandoned villa area in Shenzhen's Longgang district is occupied by snail dwellers
In Haikou, Hainan, there are vacant villas that have been converted into illegal pig farms, and finally because there is no anti-pollution treatment that has a huge impact on the nearby ecological environment and water bodies, they have been banned by the cadres and police in the special inspection. And those villas that are idle but still have owners can not escape the fate of being destroyed, and many have become the "purchase points" of thieves - like the ruins exploration enthusiasts, the theft gang will also communicate with each other, and soon find the remote mansions that have been vacant and the items have not yet been removed and looted.
Such a scenario has been fully interpreted in neighboring Japan, and the ensuing "bursting of the housing bubble" will inevitably cause a little worry in the domestic real estate market, which seems to be repeating the same mistakes. In the 1980s, the Japanese government implemented a policy of low interest rates to curb the appreciation of the yen, which led to a rapid rise in Japanese stock markets and real estate prices.
At that time, the Japanese people also believed that according to the situation of a large domestic population and a small land area, house prices would continue to rise. While such a rhetoric seems inconceivable and unconscionable today, in the bubble economy everyone was convinced that property prices could never be reduced, and everyone was eager to buy high-end residential areas around Tokyo.
The movie "Spirited Away" also hints at the phenomenon of real estate development in Japan's bubble economy bursting era
It wasn't until the real estate bubble burst and urban development brought the circle of life more and more together in the urban area that people found that the suburban single-family communities that were once full of high-rise and middle-class families of listed companies had become "ghost cities" outside the city.
The houses inherited to their children after the death of the former owners are vacant because their children do not want to sell at low prices, and they cannot come here for work and other reasons, the surrounding supporting shops have closed, the infrastructure has gradually aged, and even the number of public transportation services between residential areas and urban areas has begun to decrease.
Except for some elderly people, most young people will not choose to live in such neighborhoods, and the formerly hot suburban high-end residential areas have gradually lost their vitality.
Japanese people who once liked to buy houses as much as Chinese became shy about houses and land after the bubble burst.
Whether it is a property for self-occupation or investment, continuing to hold it today will not only not bring the expected benefits, but may even have to pay various taxes and maintenance fees to "support" the house while the property continues to depreciate. Fixed asset tax, property fee, maintenance management fee... In the face of the land and real estate left by the older generation, many young people even feel that it is a burden, and the elderly also try their best not to leave such assets that will be upside down to future generations.
As a result, 20 percent of Japan is designated as "land with unknown owners," and children who cannot afford inheritance taxes and other expenses usually do not claim and maintain inherited properties. In this way, more and more vacant and dilapidated "haunted houses" appeared in the suburbs of Japan.
While the fate of suburban luxury homes varies, real estate data for Chinese cities continues to rise. The topic of "whether China will repeat the mistakes of Japan's housing bubble" has also been discussed too many times, and has become painless from the initial alarm.
References:
Opinion: Cherish life, away from suburban villas!
Phoenix Real Estate Hangzhou Station: The owner's blood loss! Detached houses for sale at 40% off still left out in the cold
Sohu: The after-effects of the bursting of Japan's real estate bubble: young people refuse to inherit, and the elderly are in a hurry to take action
Business Times: Old mansions that can't be sold
Author: Potted plant
Edit: Sebastian
The pictures in this article are from the Internet
Ownership is owned by the original author