My belief that "you can get rich by buying a house in China" collapsed

The "House World" column aims to take the story of buying a house as the main line, through the personal experience of buyers, describe the psychological process of buyers buying a house, life changes and psychological changes before and after buying a house, and reflect the life of the current society.

It has been hanging for almost a year, and the price has been reduced several times, although there are many people who view the house, but there are few who are willing to buy. Slowly, my mentality began to break down a little, and I thought that I would not be able to smash the first house in my hands.

Written by丨Ling Jueling

Recently, various property market relaxation policies have been frequently introduced, and "recognizing housing but not recognizing loans", reducing the interest rate of existing loans, and various places have also gradually relaxed the purchase restriction policy, and the transaction volume in some places has begun to recover.

It's just that in the face of this new dynamic in the property market, I feel that it has nothing to do with myself. Over the years, as a content entrepreneur floating in Beijing, the experience of selling houses and changing houses, going south to stay, and "upside down" houses back and forth is exhausting and laughing at the same time.

01 Just need to "get on the bus"

In 2015, five years after graduating from university, I did three major events in a row: getting married, buying a house, and having children.

For a child from a rural area, the pressure to complete these three things within a year is still great, especially when buying a house, although the house price in Beijing at that time was not as good as it is now, but with reference to my income and savings, it was also a sky-high price.

And a big part of the reason why I decided to buy a house was because of my soon-to-be-born son. I simply calculated the account, after the birth of the child, the elderly in the family came to bring, how can the family of four rent a two-bedroom and a living room, even if it is the South Fifth Ring Road I rented at that time, a small two-bedroom rent is four or five thousand, the location is better, the area is larger, the price is higher.

And to buy a "car house", as long as you can make up the down payment, use a full 1.2 million provident fund loan, and repay the loan of 5200 per month, which is basically the same as the rent expenditure. And getting married and having children, it is not convenient to rent a house and move up, think about it or grit your teeth and "get in the car".

After reaching a consensus with my daughter-in-law, I began to view houses in and around the rented Yizhuang, and make a down payment while viewing the houses.

At that time, the savings of the two of us added up to less than 600,000 yuan, and it was still difficult to get on the small two-bedroom near the car. So, while I managed my colleagues and friends to borrow money, I also asked my father in my hometown to help me come up with some ideas.

As the saying goes, asking someone to do things is short, let alone borrowing money, so I am prepared at both ends, and I don't have big hopes at both ends. Even so, my father's unpleasant episode in raising money in his hometown greatly changed my view of human nature and completely dispelled my desire to borrow money to make a down payment.

"It depends on who it lends to, and the borrower can't afford it in the future," said my father when he relayed to me this quote from a relative of the same generation, and I immediately told him on the phone that he didn't have to scrape together money in his hometown.

So, I locked the location of the viewing in the Old Palace near Yizhuang. Although it is located in the South Fifth Ring Road and closer to the city, housing prices are cheaper than in Yizhuang. What's more, in terms of the savings we have on hand, we can barely afford to live in a small two-bedroom home here.

▲Beijing property market (Photo/Figureworm Creative)

After following the agency to look at the house for a while, the mood of the Beijing property market also began to change, and many houses with slightly better conditions were sold out not long after hanging out, basically not giving buyers time to consider. As far as our budget at the time was concerned, the choice of houses was really limited, and the price bullish sentiment was getting stronger, and we finally settled on the top floor of a slab building complex in the Old Palace, and there was no elevator.

The reason for this house, in addition to the unclear fate factor, an important reason is that it is a small two-bedroom, and then the previous owner's family, which is also a couple and a little boy, the old man came to help with the children. After chatting a few words, and looking at the layout and maintenance of the house, I felt that in addition to the fact that it was a little annoying to climb the floor height, it basically met our needs.

In this way, after completing the transfer procedures, we moved in more than a month before the birth of our son. Although the daughter-in-law has a big belly and climbs the stairs very hard every day, she is relieved to think that she finally has her own home in Beijing.

Although there are shortcomings in the ointment, they do not hinder the pleasure of suffering.

02 Toss "house change"

At the end of 2015, the volume and price of Beijing's property market rose, and the rise in housing prices began to be transmitted to the Old Palace area. At that time, because the son was just born, the family was very busy, and although they were glad to get on the bus in time, they really didn't pay much attention to the house price.

But in the middle of 2016, a WeChat message from the former owner still impressed me, he said in WeChat, "You guys buy a house to catch up with the good times, which is equivalent to 10 years less struggle."

I can vaguely feel the loss that he didn't sell the house at the high point, but after thinking about it, he sold the house because he was in a hurry to change the school district house for his children, and the new house he bought should increase even higher. I didn't reply to his WeChat because I really didn't know what to say, especially the phrase "10 years less struggle", which made me unable to go back.

In this small house, we lived for 7 years, during which our family was generally smooth, in the words of my daughter-in-law, this house is still relatively "prosperous" me, because after living in, I have improved a lot in both work and income.

It's just that after living for a long time, the problem of the house as the top floor has gradually appeared, and the roof of the house began to flood on rainy days, at first it was a corner of the second bedroom, and then the living room also had it. A few times when it rained heavily, the flooded places began to drip water, and I called the property to ask for repairs, and the reply was all kinds of excuses.

Fortunately, there is not much rain in Beijing, and the overall problem of flooding our lives is good, that is, the few places where the roof is flooded are really unsightly, and then my daughter-in-law and I are also a little worried that this factor will affect the sale of houses later.

The time came to the end of 2020, our house was 5 years old, at the time of the transaction, there was no personal tax and business tax, plus the child was about to go to elementary school, and we did not have a Beijing hukou, and we wanted to leave Beijing before this, so I entrusted an intermediary to hang out, but I didn't expect that this hanging was a year and a half.

We also know that the penthouse is worse than other floors, regardless of liquidity or price, but thinking that after all, it is a house in Beijing, the price is low, and it can always be sold. Moreover, in order to get out of the house smoothly, I paid out of my own pocket and asked the master to waterproof the roof, and the interior was also painted, and the house had not yet been sold, and it had already cost more than 10,000.

It has been hanging for almost a year, and the price has been reduced several times, although there are many people who view the house, but there are few who are willing to buy. Slowly, my mentality began to break a little, and I thought that the first house was going to be smashed. What worries me even more is that this house cannot be sold, and according to the purchase restriction policies of various places, no matter which big city I go to when I leave Beijing, I can't buy a passable house with my savings.

At that time, the most I thought in my heart was that it was only blamed that when I bought a house, "people were poor and short-minded", and they did not borrow more money, even if they borrowed hundreds of thousands more, and bought a better floor, they would not be so passive, but there is no regret medicine in the world, we can only further reduce the price and wait for someone to be destined for.

Until April 2022, after being more than 400,000 yuan lower than the initial listing price, the house waited for a new buyer, and finally sold at a price of 2.64 million yuan, although it was more than 500,000 yuan higher than the house under the same conditions in the community, but we still made some money in this house, but it was far less exaggerated than the previous owner said "10 years less struggle".

Although the timing of the sale of the house was slightly embarrassing, because the children were going to primary school in a few months, and we had to leave Beijing to go south to buy a house and set a school, the time was already very hasty, but the moment the house was out, I still breathed a long sigh of relief.

It's just that people are not as good as the sky, just less than a week after the house was sold, our target city Suzhou went south, followed by Shanghai was also sealed, don't say that in the short term to buy a house in the past, even if it is difficult to enter.

▲Hefei cityscape (Photo/Figureworm Creative)

So, we remembered the alternative Hefei. My wife and I are both from Anhui, and it is also a good choice to go back to the provincial capital of our hometown.

But after some inquiry, according to Hefei's purchase restriction policy at that time, we were not qualified to buy a house, and not long ago, we were able to take talents to settle down to buy a house, but I don't know if Hefei's house prices rose too sharply in previous years, or what other factors, this policy was not renewed after it expired that year.

Neither target city can buy a house, but the admission policies of both places require schools to be linked to houses, and it is too late to rent a house temporarily. At that time, I really had a feeling that I was accurately targeted by various "policies", purchase restrictions, prevention and control, enrollment, which level can be passed, will not be so passive.

After hesitating for a few days, we were forced to give up our plans to go south and began to hurriedly look at houses in Beijing, because according to Beijing's admission policy, we who do not have a house in our name, we have no time to rent a house, and if we do not buy a house, our children will not go to school. Moreover, even if it is to buy a house, the time is very urgent, Beijing Kindergarten Primary School will do information collection in May, we must finalize the house before this.

03 With qualifications, there is no money to buy a house

Because of the urgency of time, I didn't even have time to complain, so I decided to buy a house, and this time the viewing time was shorter than the first time. From selling the house in front of me to buying a new house, the two transactions took less than two weeks apart, so much so that I later mentioned it to my friends, and they laughed at me as if buying a house was like buying groceries.

Because we don't have a Beijing hukou, we don't think about what school district house, after all, we can't buy it in the Beijing college entrance examination, right? The newly bought house was finally set between the East Fourth and Fifth Ring Road, not far from the company, and the children entered school nearby.

Learning from the lessons of the first house, we chose the second top floor with an elevator this time, and after counting the intermediary tax, we not only emptied the bottom of the house, but also borrowed a lot of money from outside.

When buying a house, although the epidemic is relatively serious, judging from the situation of queuing for the transfer of the real estate trading center, the entire market is still lively. The accumulation of years of hard work, in exchange for such a house, for the child's entrance qualification, the heart can be described as mixed.

Moreover, because the first house was not leveraged, I bought the top floor, which made it difficult to sell in the end, and when I bought the house again, I chose to increase leverage and lived a life where I had to pay back every day when I opened my eyes.

Now that I think about it, the reason why I made a move at that time, in addition to the situation forced it, there was still some luck in the future personal income. At this point, my own insight is not even as good as that of the old father in the countryside, he persuaded me to really cannot, send the child back to the hometown to study, buy a house, change the city are all big things, and then observe and make a decision.

Everything that happened later, from the point of view of economic benefits, the plan given by the father was the most reasonable. Because even if I can successfully buy a house in Suzhou or Hefei, the vast majority of houses in these two cities have been in a downward spiral in the past year. As for my house in Beijing, it will definitely not escape this wave.

No wonder the old saying always says "if you don't listen to the old man, you will suffer a loss in front of you", I have a personal experience this time.

Ironically, in August 2022, Hefei began to relax purchase restrictions, and I suddenly had the qualification to buy a house there, but unfortunately, with the qualification, I had no money to buy a house. Not long ago, the city, which has repeatedly been in the limelight due to house price increases, has fully relaxed purchase restrictions, and the situation in Suzhou is similar.

Although the price decline in the Beijing property market is not large on the surface, it is an indisputable fact that there are more and more listings and less and less trading volume. The maintainer of our house in the chain family often lamented to me that this year is the most difficult year for her to do in the industry for 20 years, she herself has not opened a bill for two months in a row, and the two apprentices she brought have also resigned because of dismal performance. "Don't talk about selling houses now, even renting them out is much worse than in previous years."

Figure/Figureworm Creative

"The belief that you can get rich by buying a house in China has collapsed, right?" Late at night, a snowball big V in the circle of friends posted such a state, and I silently clicked a like.

In fact, after 2019, many people bought houses, so far they are not profitable, and even many have lost money. It's just that before this year, although everyone lost money now, they always believed that one day, house prices could rise back, but since this year, fewer and fewer people have thought so.

In this big wave of the rising and falling property market, how many people passively follow the wave like me? After all, in China, in addition to the residential attribute, the house is also involved in many other factors that you cannot give up in your life, such as children's education. Many times, I don't want to toss, but there are always some uncontrollable factors that I can't help but toss.

The newly bought house in Beijing has exchanged for the child's temporary enrollment qualification, but in the long run, I still have to toss once because of the hukou factor, but if it involves the house again, I really don't have confidence that I can toss it well.