Buying an apartment near your child's school

(chinadaily.com.cn) Updated: 2016-09-09 16:51

Zhang Lin's husband plays with her son at Huanghuagou, a grassland close to Beijing, on August 28, 2016. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

A couple moving from Southwest China's Chengdu to Beijing bought a second-hand apartment in the capital city at hundreds of thousands of dollars to enable their child to enroll in a better primary school, and they regretted not having done it sooner.

"We bought our apartment in June last year at 3.65 million yuan ($547,513) in Haidian district so that our child can get a spot at Haidian No. 2 Experimental Primary School," said 35-year-old Zhang Lin.

School-aged children in China are eligible for nine-year compulsory education from primary school to junior high, and in most cases are admitted to the school nearest to their residency.

Located in the northwestern part of downtown Beijing, Haidian district is home to a disproportionately large number of prestigious primary and junior high schools, which pushes the property price in the district sky-high.

"We borrowed commercial loans to buy the apartment after selling our house in Chengdu to pay the down payment," said Zhang.

Beijing requires first-time homebuyers to pay a minimum of 30 percent of the property's total price as a down payment if they buy a second-hand apartment.

"We are now living a less free life than we used to because now we need to pay the installment payment monthly for 30 years," said Zhang, "we canceled basically all recent plans of buying pricey items and we can no longer casually embark on overseas tour."

"The good thing is that we feel a lot more assured that our child finally has a school to attend and that we don't have to worry about the seemingly always increasing housing price any longer," said Zhang.

A year after Zhang's home purchase, the total price of her two-bedroom apartment of 88 square meters has surged by more than 30 percent to 5 million yuan.

"I wish we had bought an apartment earlier," said Zhang, "If we had bought one in 2014, then we could have paid 10,000 yuan less for per square meters."

Zhang's plan to buy an apartment in 2014 was stalled by her husband, who feared they could not raise enough for the down payment and was also shocked by the comparison of the housing conditions between Beijing and Chengdu.

"Beijing's land price is too high, but the environment of the residential communities and the design of the apartments are far less appealing than those in Chengdu," said Zhang, "we can buy a villa with 3.5 million yuan in Chengdu."

Though he now owns an apartment, Zhang still lives in a rented one, which is close to a kindergarten attended by her three-and-a-half-year old son.

"I feel it's nice to live in a rented apartment," said Zhang, "I wouldn't have considered buying one if it wasn't factored in getting my child into a better school."

Actually, Haidian No. 2 Experimental Primary School is not one of these first-class primary schools in Beijing, but just one of the medium-level ones.

Haidian district's Zhongguancun village area is home to several best primary schools and housing price here stands now at around 100,000 yuan per square meters, according to statistics.

"We made the decision to stay in Beijing instead of going back to Chengdu mainly for the sake of the education of our child because Beijing has better education resources and pays more attention to the all-round development of children," said Zhang, "I feel my child has better chance of being admitted to one of the best universities if attending school in Beijing."