The blood and tears of buying a house in China: trapped in a point system

In 2020~2021, by the epidemic, global water release and many other influences, housing prices are led by first-tier cities, followed by other cities. According to the data, Shenzhen rose 34% year-on-year, Guangzhou 11.55%, Shanghai 8.45% ……2021 year, it is even more special for Shanghai home buyers.

The rise of second-hand houses, the crazy “price jump” of landlords “, so that the new housing market is getting hotter and hotter. With the introduction of the points shaking policy, every “newcomer The “newcomers” have become ants on a hot pot. From now on, buying a new house is no longer about assets and luck, but about points. Points are like education, is “seeking housing ” the knocking brick, “how many points you “has become their new way of greeting. A sent “I buy a new house in Shanghai ” questionnaire, received a total of 200+ valid responses.

From them, we selected 6 stories of people who bought houses, from post-60s to post-90s, from Shanghainese to new Shanghainese, from first home to replacement …… Some people sold their homes in a desperate attempt and were unsuccessful in the lottery 3 times; some people mocked themselves. “As a working class, can also experience once, what is broken capital chain. Some people take the full amount of money, but was stopped by the security guards at the door; some people buy a house for seven years, but time and time again, and the woman’s family quarrel; some people pledge the day, only to find that they can not take out a loan;.

At 9 a.m. every weekday, the 16 home buying groups Amber has joined become active.

Every weekday morning at 9 a.m., the 16 groups Amber has joined are active, and within an hour of not looking, there are 500 messages piling up. The only time left for home buyers to communicate is during the daytime on weekdays, as time is precious in the evenings, and weekends are spent running around and sending children to interest classes. “

The relationship between the group of friends, both enemies and friends. In the same property group means that the family income is roughly the same, the same goal, enjoy the same anxiety and worries, it can be said that they hate each other.

However, quarrels often break out, and the war between Shanghainese and new Shanghainese is on the verge of breaking out, with each groupmate seeming to be a potential rival.

The useful information is hidden in 999+ messages, and Amber, as a novice home buyer, doesn’t dare to leave any of them behind.

From the “subscription “, “lottery “, “upside down “, “five new cities “, “tailgate Amber has gone through 100,000 records of group chats.

As new homes are strictly limited in price, many areas in Shanghai have seen the spectacle of new homes being cheaper than the surrounding second-hand homes. With the inverted prices, popular new properties are often sold out on the same day, which is called “daily disc” in the black language. This is called “daily disc” in the black language, and often there are 5 people grabbing 1 set of houses. How? By “lottery “The luck of the draw.

As a Shanghai native, Amber, 35, had been living in a 45-square-meter apartment since she got married due to her failed home buying strategy in the early years.

Her parents and in-laws took the initiative to put up their savings, and the three families sold their two houses, “Nowadays, everyone compares buying a new house to buying a new stock, as if buying it is making money. But I am to live, even through the ‘10,000 people shaking’ the battle, but also in the resignation of the. “

Late at night on January 21, Amber was selling her house at the moment, called “the strictest ever “The property market control policy was introduced, referred to as “Shanghai ten “. Fake divorce is cracked down on, not full 5 years of the house need to be fully levied VAT, strict investigation of the source of down payment …… followed by foreclosure house purchase restrictions, tightening of loan policies, shaking new rules online ……

Among them, the “new rules of points shaking “has completely changed the rules of the game:.

Once upon a time, it was purely a matter of luck. Now, whether or not the Shanghai hukou, marriage, years of social security payment, whether or not there is property, and whether or not there is a record of home purchase within 5 years, determines the points of each person.

When the new development is opened for subscription, all subscribers submit their information and the points are calculated by the Municipal Housing Bureau, Civil Affairs Bureau and Social Security Center. In the end, if there are 100 housing units, the first 130 people will be eligible for the lottery, and the number of finalists will be 130% of the number of new homes.

“In two weeks’ time, the wind and clouds have changed. It’s like going back to the days of planned economy, when you had to have not only money but also points to buy a new house. It was really a mistake, we became a high score high down payment no home households. “

But Amber is still anxious, she has never burned incense, during May Day religiously worshiped Buddha, “always feel that there are 10,000 details will be wrong, still worry so much can not sleep. “

Amber is still on her way to buy a house, and her anxiety is not an isolated case.

A survey was sent out “I’m buying a new house in Shanghai ” questionnaire, received 200+ valid responses, most of which were from the post-80s and post-90s, with an average score of 54 points.

40.74% of people thought their anxiety level was at its highest, for which some people added more than 25 home buying groups, and 7% had the most heated arguments with their families. 66.67% of people were willing to lower their home buying conditions in order to get on the train in a hurry, and floor, area and even lot could be sacrificed.

If you compare replacement to job hopping, then buying a new home by replacement is like quitting your job naked. You’re throwing your money away for higher earnings and a better environment, but if you’re unlucky, you’ll return in defeat with more capital.

In 2020, my 10th year of work, my husband and I have a house (my parents’ inheritance), no mortgage, and an easy life, but I want to add some leverage and increase my equity.

After listing my home last July, I read the entire book “Shanghai Urban Master Plan (2017-2035)” and finally locked in a new home in Jinqiao, Pudong, for 70,000 per unit.

But the sale did not go smoothly. 130 square meters of staircase house, hanging next to a small vegetable, next to the elevated, very few people to see the house. We calculated that the first target plate would open in December, and if the house did not sell by the end of October, it would not be sold. As a result, no one asked for two months.

On October 8, my husband and I went to Jing’an Temple to burn incense, and on October 31, the deadline I had set, a buyer with full payment appeared. On the same day my name was removed, the pledging process began. It was such a seamless transition that the house was mine.

There were no points yet, and the ratio skyrocketed to 600%, which meant 6 people for one house. There were 358 houses in total, and we got number 466, but we wanted the largest house type and thought we had a chance to pick up the pieces. I walked into the hotel that day with high hopes, but as soon as I sat down, I heard, “The house is sold out! “, at that time it was more than 400 numbers ……

It really took a try to believe that the new house blogger’s claim that “buying a new house is a road of no return The second subscription, we were Buddhist.

The second pledge, we Buddhist a lot, sunshine map, house plans are not studied. If you can get out of the 600% subscription rate, you will feel that God will not give you a second chance, no matter what it is, you will buy it. As a result, more than 1200 numbers were shaken.

The new policy soon came out, and at first glance it seemed too good to be true. But my mother has a house with the right of use in my name, a small house of 30 square meters allocated by the school that year, and we found that we could not pull it out of the production transfer, so we went to the lottery as if we had no house. The score was very high, 73 points.

After the year, the second phase of Yanlord Golden Bridge opened. The second week after the subscription, the sales sent a message: “You have a right to use the house, you have two days to prove that you do not have this property. “Of course we can not prove, the score is a few points less, so you can say that the new house is hopeless.

Either we don’t have enough points or we don’t have enough money, that’s where we are. Our current thinking is that we might as well buy a big house in the far suburbs with room for appreciation, or a small house in the city, and we’ll continue to rent a 100-square-meter house in the inner ring, where the quality of life can still be high.

But my husband is very anxious, these 2 two days to look at 7 sets of second-hand houses, he is very eager to buy, hoping to hurry to turn cash into property. If the replacement is a jump, he is willing to accept a flat jump, or willing to carry more and more mortgage. I think we are a little lost, have forgotten why we want to change the house in the first place, and what kind of life we really want to live.

But we’re not at the end of our rope, and all we have to do is adjust our expectations.

When I returned home from my studies last year, I looked at houses as soon as I got my Shanghai account in June.

Referring to the property market in Shenzhen, I had a feeling that Shanghai would soon have a wave of rise. To add to my anxiety, we were forced to move three times in less than six months for the same reason: the landlord was selling the house. One of them was a second-hand commercial apartment, and even this was sold, which I think is enough to explain the problem.

During that time, my husband and I were often watching a drama one second, and the next second we started discussing: “You said 12 million, in the end can be rushed? “

The two will be very tacit understanding out of the calculator, as if every time you calculate, the money will be more like. How much can both parents support? How much do we have in savings? How much will be the year-end bonus? How much is in the stock fund …… after at least 30 times of checking the calculations, confirmed with a down payment of 4 million, rushing 9 million of the new property.

Then it’s just a matter of waiting …… for the funds to come in from all parties.

The first new house I saw was in Jing’an Daning. 90,000 was less than that, and there was no need for a lottery, let alone points, so I bought it as I arrived. But the funds were not in place, so I had to give up.

The most unfortunate thing was the new property in December last year, when we already had 2 million in cash, but because a financial management of 1 million had not yet expired, my father had not yet given me the remaining 800,000. In the end, the pledge was not successful.

As a working class person, this is the first time I feel what is a broken capital chain ……

The sunshine was good but could not relieve her anxiety

I was very anxious and cried several times with my mom and dad. I wanted to ask them to help me borrow some money because I didn’t have any, but I couldn’t turn it around, but they weren’t happy to take the risk.

It was the end of December when I really gathered 4 million. Soon after the new policy came, I participated in the first pledge in April.

But I felt that I had already lost. At that time, I took a look at the pledge form, and there were many “social security giants” who had paid social security for more than 200 months. There were many people who had paid social security for more than 200 months, and we were basically hopeless. In order to buy a house, we sold our stocks and funds, and sold at the low point. It is very hard to feel that we are not making any money from stocks, and the property market is falling short.

In our international students’ WeChat group, there was a general anxiety. I am already a high score, because I got married early and my husband has paid social security in Shanghai for 6 years. Others have no chance.

Buying a house really made me grow up overnight. I am not an only child, there is a younger brother than my 4 years old. My parents still have some patriarchal thoughts, they helped my brother buy a 170 square meter house with full payment early. I would think how my brother is so cool, and I’m still struggling here ……

But, my parents’ money is their own, how they want to allocate it and when to give it to me is their right, and I should be grateful. So when I am asking and complaining, my position is unjust and unwavering, which makes me feel even sadder.

Because of buying a house, I felt the pressure of society on young people straight away, and just wished I could earn more money, which was not even in my thinking before. But still, looking forward, I missed this housing price rise in my twenties, and although I nominally lost a few million, I do have a long life ahead of me.

My journey to buy a house started in 2015, who knew that time after time to step in the air, so far no house.

My girlfriend and I met in 2014, and a year later both parents met to buy a house is a prerequisite for marriage. At that time, there was a down payment of 2 million, intended to buy a house of 5 million, the result of a wave of crazy price increases, we want to wait and see.

2 million idle is not a matter, my father took to speculate in the stock market, a loss of more than 600,000. When the house rose and the stock market lost money, the down payment was not enough. At that time, I wanted to struggle for another year, and then sell my parents’ only house, and use one big house for two small houses.

In 2017, my parents-in-law offered to pay us 2 million, but only if our family also contributed to 2 million to buy a house of 8 million together. But at this time, my mother’s company has problems, they are doing infrastructure, has been in a state of loss, ready to close down. My dad also retired early. I was the only one in the family with an income, and I was under a lot of pressure.

Just when we were ready to take the money out to buy a house, my mom’s diabetes worsened and her whole body swelled up, and she was admitted to the hospital and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars. In this case, the only set of parents to sell the house, the risk is too big. The company’s main business is to provide a wide range of products and services to the public, such as the Internet, the Internet, and the Internet.

Just that year, both families actually pinched some money in their hands, because of the disagreement, they each bought a house. My parents did not discuss with me, they bought a suite in Qingpu Zhujiajiao, and her parents also bought her a house before marriage.

What I didn’t expect was that last year, because of the epidemic, the infrastructure suddenly came alive again, my mother’s company performance doubled a few times and was ready to go public. Suddenly, our family became okay again, and my mom’s health recovered, so the down payment came together again.

Finally everything was back on track, and I wanted to get the wedding house done and welcome the bride, only to be stuck with the new policy again.

In January 2021, we had already looked at a $7 million house, and the landlord had negotiated. The house in Zhujiajiao was about to be sold when the new policy came out on January 21. Originally full of 2 years on the tax benefits, now no longer, become full of 5, that house is stuck in exactly 4 years and a half.

We thought about it for a few days, and finally bit the bullet and paid the extra tax ourselves, paying tens of thousands more in taxes and selling the house at a loss. As a result, once we returned from the Spring Festival, the house we were looking at went up another 1.5 million, and the landlord jumped to 8.5 million, plus the tax, so we couldn’t afford it again …… the most real feeling is that when the budget is pulled enough, every extra 10,000, can completely crush you.

I am now planning to look at new homes, I 56 points should not be a problem. But it’s currently at a standstill because the money isn’t there. According to the previous, the buyer’s loan a month to our hands, but this year the loan release is particularly slow, it may take until July to completely to our hands …… at the latest, next year before the Spring Festival must be bought down.

This 7 years, the rhythm point has been stepped on the empty, each step is stepped on the policy or the market behind. So tired. But I think, I should soon boil out, I am still very happy.

After the new policy to buy a house, simply magic. For the first time, I felt that I could be stopped by the security guards with full payment ……

I originally had a 100 square meter school district house, but my child will be in elementary school next year, so I suddenly felt that it was not a good school district, so I thought I would replace it.

The policy had just come out, and since there was a record of home purchases within 5 years, we calculated that it was about 48 points, which we thought was not too low. I couldn’t imagine that there were so many people in Shanghai, because of the harsh conditions, such as being married with a household registration, having no house in your name, and having no record of home purchase within 5 years.

Overnight, the attitude of developers has changed. Those with high scores and full payment were the most popular, while those with low scores like me couldn’t even find sales. It was a crazy time. When it came to subscription, the developers started to dismantle the sales office and moved it to a secret location, notifying only a very small number of customers with good payment terms and high scores.

Sales do not even need to maintain customers, customers in turn to please sales, I see in the group often people @ sales: “I full points full payment, remember to notify me! “Lest the sales are “forget” and miss important information.

Take 48 points to see the Hongqiao plate will be faced with what? I was actually very sure in my mind, I took so much money, full payment ah, I will not be able to buy a house? As a result, the security guard stopped me.

“How many points do you have? “

“48 points. “

“Go go go. “

I started to get a little anxious when I realized that it seemed like there was a real possibility that I wouldn’t be able to buy a house. In the end, we had to try to find the last property, and luck started to favor us.

We were swiped on a short video app and there was a stacked villa in Songjiang Dongjing that didn’t require points. Our whole family loved it, including the kids. It’s a bit far away, but my wife and I are free to work, there are tons of private schools there too, and everything fits. It took less than 3 days from the time we went to see it to place the order.

The sale went very smoothly, I signed the contract to sell the house at 8:00 am and the contract to buy the house at 12 noon on the same day. And the buyer was fully paid and the payment cycle was perfect. The money was in my account in the morning and out at 2:00 pm.

We had considered what to do if the money didn’t arrive in time. The worst solution was to pay a default fee, which is 1/10,000th of a day, equivalent to $800 a day. For a house of this size, 800 yuan a day is nothing.

After I married from Guangdong to Shanghai, I have been living in public housing. The way public housing works is that when you have lived in it for 5 years, the rent will go up every year. At that time, I also considered the living environment of my children, and I felt that buying a house was imperative.

At first it was very naive, there was no money on hand, so I dared to look at new houses. After running around, I found out that the rule is now, the deposit on the day, a week to pay the down payment, 3 months to approve the loan. It turns out that you have to think about the money before you can go look at a house.

Before the points policy, we tried the first lottery, when the documents were very loose. There were a total of 256 listings, and 1,465 people pledged, which is nearly 700% of the pledges.

I witnessed the whole lottery process at the Shanghai Notary Office. I could see every number that popped up. I saw a number in front of me and a number behind me, but not my own number. Finally I shook to more than 600, no chance at all.

Only later did I know that this did not shake to, really is the blessing of the Buddha.

When I came back from New Year’s Eve, there was a new market to be opened, and I was asked to provide a large push of materials. On the day of handing in the information, they took a look at my husband’s credit, there are too many months overdue, all the banks do not pass the loan. This meant that we had to pay full price for the house. We were sitting at the sales office, staring at each other, our minds were empty for a long time, and our hearts were beating fast.

I was so anxious that I walked around the sales office and just walked to the posting of the one-bedroom price list, and I calmed down and started to count the money. If we went from the expected 98 square meters to 88 square meters, the money from the sale of the house, plus my in-laws’ pension book, would still be 600,000 from full payment.

My father-in-law was struggling because there was a clause in the contract that if the remaining balance of the house was not paid within one month, the down payment would not be refunded. But we’ve come this far, so we have to do it the hard way.

I got number 80 in the lottery, and there were only 42 houses of 88 square meters, so I thought it was hopeless. We are online house selection, I did my homework early, each building a few numbers, a few zeroes, how much, all print out.

The more I crossed out each one, the happier I was, because the most expensive ones were all sold, and almost everyone wanted to buy 98. we finally got the 88 square meter second penthouse, and were really happy to jump up and down.

We are still facing a problem, after the house is delivered next year, there is still a big expense, parking space, tax, decoration, and almost 200,000 yuan. So we have to settle the 200,000 within a year and a half. After two years, we can start paying back our friends, and they understand.