Apartment-Hunting in Beijing: the Post-90s Generation’s Family Efforts for a House
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The Takeaway
Some say the post-90s generations are too cool to join the housing market, some say they are just too poor to afford one. The fact is, buying a house is always a family decision in China.[/vc_column_text][/thb_border][vc_column_text]
“Having a house can help one to settle down in the city, drive him out of restlessness and motivate him to hew out a career.”
Ke Bu, 26 years old, had just worked in Beijing for a month, and his parents suddenly came to the city from his hometown a thousand kilometers away. At first he thought they were just coming to visit him; he had no idea that they had another purpose: touring apartments.
It was a Saturday. Ke’s parents had already viewed several apartments for sale by the time he met them after work. They took the high-speed train to Beijing in the morning. Once arrived, they went straight to the real estate agent with their bulging baggage and left by train the next day.
This routine had been repeated for at least 10 times before Ke finally brought an apartment in May, 2016. He once had no plan for this and thought his parent took the move too early.
Ke didn’t pay any attention to the housing price in Beijing until his parents put it forward. He planned to go abroad for further education while in graduate school; he didn’t expect to work after graduation. When he was studying Architecture in NanJing university, one of the best in the nation, a leading state-owned enterprise in construction industry offered him a job and promised to resolve his Hu Kou (household registration) issue.
Before Ke came to Beijing, he did the math: on the basis of 5,000 RMB per month, 70-year rent would be 4.2 million RMB, the same price of a two-bedroom second-hand house at that time. Therefore, he didn’t see the need to buy a house and could accept long-term renting. Once he bought a house, he could never leave Beijing; he still wanted to study for a doctorate in Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich.
At the first time Ke’s parents came to Beijing for house-viewing, they earnestly advised Ke to buy an apartment in the city. In their view, his job was a most welcome opportunity and he’d better settle down and work hard in this company. As traditional Chinese parents, they thought that getting a house as early as possible was essential for marriage. Ke’s girlfriend would graduate in 2017, and if she could find a job in Beijing, the couple might get married within a year. Thus, a house would be a must. In addition, the housing price would continuously go up in the future.
Ku was convinced by his parents. The following year, this family, along with over 1.4 million people in this city, started to look for a suitable housing properties eagerly.
“It worn me out.” Ke said.
Searching for The House
Both professionals working in real estate, Ke and his father cannot be more familiar with house itself. However, they are both layman when it comes to the market information of the house in Beijing, the price and house type of which has far beyond their awareness.
The company that Ke working at is located at Chegongzhuang, Haidian District. And their strategy is to conduct a thorough search by visiting every estate agency alongside the Subway Line 6. But the result of the trip made then extremely shocked and disappointed. From West 2nd Ring Road to West 4th Ring Road, what’s available are either old apartments or costly new ones that way exceed the family budget. The huge differences in estate market between their hometown and Beijing made them very frustrated: a ventilated three-room house back home would only cost them about 2 million RMB, with well-constructed interior and beautiful environment.
Every time Ke’s parents came to Beijing during the second half of 2015, they would visit at least 6 different apartments within half a day. In October, they finally found a house of their satisfaction: with well-lighted kitchen and washroom, this small apartment is relatively new and in good quality.
But the only problem with this property is the distance. 2 km by walk and three times transfer will cost Ke nearly one hour from the apartment to his company. With no better choices, Ke’s family decided to sign with this 4.5 million RMB apartment after Ke’s company settles his Hukou by the end of the year.
After Ke came back to Beijing after the Spring Festival however, to the family’s surprise, the price of this house had increased by almost one million RMB within a dozen days.
It was the first time that Ke felt terrified of the housing price of Beijing. He blamed himself for his carelessness, without paying more attention to this “big issue”.
“Losing” one million RMB in vain made his parents felt so regretful and even more anxious. “If you don’t buy the house as soon as possible, you will have to pay another one million RMB.” The topics of their conversation were always about Ke’s latest experiences of apartment search, and his parents repeatedly asked him to visit more agencies and try harder.
During the next half of the year, Ke always thinking about this issue. Once he got his new registered residence in March, 2016, he immediately started his busy schedule of apartment-hunting. He was often on the way of searching for the house after 8 p.m. when he was off duty from Monday to Saturday. If there was no need for him to work overtime on Sunday, he would go around the whole area again and again trying to find new properties to tour.
The bottom line of the house he was looking for had been repeatedly reshaped by the cruel reality. A satisfying house with good quality would cost over 10 million RMB, so he didn’t have much choices.
The family finally found another pretty good apartment after repeatedly compromised their expectation. However, that house did not reach any standard that his parents setting up at the very beginning at all: covers an area about 90 m2 with two rooms; at the 5th floor in a small high-rise building; the walls of the washroom has turned black and the ventilation system is not well functioned.
What’s worse, there was no satisfying school for his future child in that school district. Basically there were only middle-aged and aged people living in that area. Outside of the building walls are painted light cream and brick red, the steel bars of the balconies and air-condition holders had rusted already. Still, a house like this would 73,455 RMB per sq. on average.
The only advantage of buying that house was the short-distance commuting. That house was located at the outer West 2nd Ring Road. It would only cost Ke 10 minutes to walk to the subway and 15 minutes to ride a bike to the company.
Ke had once thought that the price of the house in Beijing was so high that there would be no market, which made him miss a better house in the same area. At that time, his parents were afraid that the agency would play dirty in the deal, so they refused paying 20,000 RMB in advance to get preemption right.
12 hours later, the agency told Ke that the house had been purchased by another client. All the family were shocked – even though these houses were expensive, many wealthy families rushed to buy one.
Entering the Contract
On the day they decided to purchase the house, the three of the family bought a watermelon when taking walks after they had finished inspecting the houses at 9 a.m. They were making final decision between the two property options while enjoying the melon. Ke’s mother preferred the big, more distanced one, and his father preferred the opposite. Both of them would not compromise so Ke became the one to make the final call.
After finished the last piece of the melon, Ke made up his mind. He chose the one that is closer his company, saving two hours from commuting for more valuable things.
In the afternoon of the same day, the garden of that residential area became the main battlefield of Ke’s family. The family, the agent and the house owner sat around and had a fierce negotiation. When they got into the house this morning, they found that the agent was leading an old couple to the door. According to the agent, the couple had paid the earnest immediately. Eventually, Ke’ family won the house at the price of 65.5 million RMB, 30 thousand yuan higher than the couple would offer and decided to enter into the contract the following week.
In that evening, it started to rain. The family held a celebration at a local restaurant with noodles with soy bean paste of old Beijing style. His parents were full of emotional thoughts when having the meal. They thought that they could finally have a vacation in Beijing next time rather than running around the city with heavy mental stress.
But Ke tossed and turned that night, unable to sleep. It seemed that the world had lost the color and became gloomy. He once thought that compared with the generation of his parent, he would not have the same strong feelings of the living pressure as they are. However, recalling these days, he could clearly sense the depression generated by the life from the bottom of his heart as a man in this society. Those once meaningful and interesting things in his life were gradually destructed into the dull fragments in front of his eyes.
It was not until midnight of the day when he moved into the house that he finally got to feel belonged to this 90-square-meter place.
At that night, he hired a tricycles-riding worker to move. 4 suitcases, nearly 2-meter-long folding bed and air purifier were stacked. He sat on the top of all his properties which were piled up for 2 meters, sense of fulfillment and confidence flowed through his body. Finishing unloading, he could not wait to detailing every corner, turning on every light and opening and closing windows. Dim light form adjacent streets got through window and fell on his face and he fell asleep finally.
This was the first time that he had a good sleep in two months.
New Life
Ke’s family had to deal with a pretty tense financial situation now. This house is the most expensive stuff the family could ever afford. They initially prepared a 5.4million budget to buy house. Once they joked and thought pensions should be accumulated right now.
Ke’s father had said he wanted to change his car for many times. However, this was never mentioned after they bought the house.
Ke was not sure whether he was grateful to or guilty of his parents in his deep mind. His parents worked their whole life and gave everything they had to him as a gift, a gift meaning too much. His parents may feel at ease and justified but he was conflicted. After paying the deposit, he casually proposed to pay his parents 5000 RMB per month as the repayment for the house loan. His parents accepted this proposal delightedly.
He feels so happy since he is quite sure that all of these are from his parents and he could not live in present mood in Beijing if he hadn’t got support.
Owning the house, he gets no rootless sense. His heart finally settled down and he became even more diligent. Ke would work relentlessly in office and use his spare time to read professional book and to learn online course.. He continually conveys himself that he could win the battle with the rising housing price if he worked hard enough to become as successful as his boss.
He has lost interest in paying attention to the floating housing price. He declares that this house would never be sold since rise of housing price is synchronistical in this city and the premium can hardly bring him any advantage in later days. However, his parents back in their home town regard staring the housing price as a kind of recreation and do it with extreme pleasure.
During the national holiday in 2016, in front of relatives and friends, Ke’s parents delightedly declared that that house’s price increased by another 1 million RMB. At this moment, the family’s resentment for that 1 million pointless loss before seems to finally vanished.
It was a happy ending after all.
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Source:博客天下
Original article (Chinese) :90后的买房战争：一人买房，全家上阵 [/vc_cta][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][thb_postgrid columns=”3″ item_count=”3″ disable_excerpts=”true” disable_postmeta=”true”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row]