www.vice.com/en/article/xgyd9n/china-property-crisis-mortgage-boycott
He Wanted a Home and a Wife. China’s Property Crisis Left Him With Neither.
中国生活 | Life in ChinaView all comments
This 27 year old makes 80k yuan a year and, assuming his down payment is 10%, is buying an apartment for 3 million yuan? There’s zero chance he’s paying off that loan. With the interest and fees and everything he’d need 50 years. He’s a speculator, hoping to flip that property once the price rises, and he’s part of the problem that led to this mess. I hope he learned his lesson and others will too.
First time home buyers deposit requirements(at the time he bought the apartment) was 30%. So it was probably closer to 1 million.
Why would you think that he is a speculator?
It is likely that this man intended to live there. Buying beyond the limits of affordability out of fear of continued price rises is not speculation in the same sense as those who are investing in multiple properties (often without bothering to get tenants) to sell later.
There is an immense pressure as a young man in China to own your own home in order to be able to get a respectable wife. Not necessarily because women are picky (though that can be true), but because they themselves are under pressure from their parents who may not accept a marriage to someone who does not own a home. I would characterise Zhong Qichao as a victim of cultural inertia that has not caught up to the economic reality.