Survey on 'House Slaves' born in the 1980s

(CRI)
Updated: 2008-01-04 09:50

 


Action artist Liang Kegang (L-1) performs action art at the 9th China International Real Estate & Archi-Tech Fair (CIHAF) in Beijing on December 11, 2007. [cnsphoto]
 

In this instance, Wang realised that he could not buy the house in his mind with a poultry budget of 800,000 yuan. Finally, he decided to raise the budget to 1,000,000 yuan.

Even despite this, he couldn't find a house to his taste near Shaoyaoju, which is in downtown Beijing. Wang decided to go further out where the houses are relatively cheaper.

In June 2007, Wang found an apartment in northern Beijing's Wangjing area. It was a 90 square metre apartment with the total price at 900,000 yuan.

To be frank, it was not Wang's dream home. He wanted to buy an apartment where most of the rooms would have good sunlight. But this was not that kind of house. After carefully mulling over every aspect of the house, Wang decided to lower his requirements.

"Can I wait any longer? All my requirements are meaningless in the face of soaring housing prices," said Wang.

Xiao Zhang is the same age as Wang. He also graduated in 2005 and decided to settle down in Beijing. Zhang wants to buy an apartment so that he can get married with his girlfriend. Zhang visited nearly all of the under-construction developments in eastern Beijing in the first half of 2006. As time went by, he found that he could only afford an apartment outside of the Fourth Ring Road.

Just like most young home buyers of his age, Zhang has to rely on his parents to pay for the initial down payment on the mortgage. It was also a huge burden for them, taking them over a month to borrow the 300,000 yuan necessary. But soaring housing price gave Zhang a big shock—it went beyond his budget! As a result, the young man had to turn his eyes to eastern Beijing's Tongzhou district, which is outside of the Fifth Ring Road. And at the beginning of 2007, Zhang finally bought an apartment of his own in the suburb. The price of Zhang's house was 5100 yuan/sq at that time, and it has been doubled now according to the young man.

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