All of the information stated in this article is based on reliable sources of information and is detailed at the end of the article
In recent years, with the continuous rise in housing prices, many young people are under undue pressure at an age that they should not bear.
However, there is a city that is different, it used to be 20,000 square meters, and now it has fallen to 4,000 yuan and no one wants it, this is not a joke, but the story that really happened in Langfang, once known as the "Pearl of the Beijing-Tianjin Corridor", but now it has become a "ghost town".
So, what's really going on here? Why did it become a "ghost town"?
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The former "Pearl of the Beijing-Tianjin Corridor"
"Ghost Town" is not a horror movie scene, but an embarrassing situation in some cities in real life, you walk on a wide road, lined with tall buildings, but empty and nowhere to be seen; Walking into the community, the doors of the brand-new buildings are closed, and there is no trace of life, which is the true portrayal of the "ghost town".
To put it bluntly, "ghost town" refers to those cities or areas where a lot of houses are built, but the occupancy rate is very low.
Indeed, if you go to the Langfang sales office in the early years, the scene can be said to be packed, as if you don't want money, why is it so hot? It's not because the housing prices in Beijing were too high at that time, but Langfang, which is close to Beijing, is only more than an hour by car, and the housing prices are still cheap.
At that time, outside the Fifth Ring Road in Beijing, they all went to 780,000 square meters, and the average price in Langfang was only 10,000 or 20,000. So in those years, all the "North Drifters" who had a little savings in their hands set their sights on Langfang. After all, renting a house in Beijing can't save a few dollars all year round, so it's better to buy a suite in Langfang, which can be regarded as a place to settle around Beijing.
As soon as the developers saw this posture, they immediately understood that this Langfang was the next gold mine, so various real estate projects sprung up like mushrooms after a rain.
Walking into the sales office, the sales mouth is so sweet that it seems to be smeared with honey, all kinds of preferential policies, what "down payment installment" and "low-interest rate loan", you are dizzy when you hear it, and you feel that you will lose 100 million if you don't buy it.
For a time, the streets and alleys of Langfang were full of advertisements about houses. The billboards on the buses, the flyers at the entrance of the community, and even the elevator of your house are plastered with the "hotline for buying a house".
But behind this bustle, there is a huge question: Langfang, is it really that good? Sure enough, within a few years, things changed completely.
The sudden attack of the epidemic: the last straw that crushed the property market
The epidemic in 2020 caught everyone off guard. For a while, the whole world was in chaos, let alone buying a house, and going out has become a luxury.
Langfang also followed the whole country and pressed the "pause button". Lockdown, isolation, and working from home, not to mention the torment of those days, the "false fire" of the property market relied on everyone's psychology of "buying up and not buying down". Now it's okay, as soon as the epidemic comes, everyone has no money, who dares to spend money indiscriminately?
Not to mention those "Beipiao" who originally expected to work in Beijing and buy a house in Langfang, they were either laid off or had their salaries cut during the epidemic, and their lives were tight, so how could they have spare money to think about a house.
After the epidemic, the property market is even more deserted, and I originally expected the "Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei integration" to bring some benefits to Langfang, but it turned out that it has been many years, and Langfang has not developed.
Whether it's a traffic jam or a traffic jam, whether it's a good job or no good job, nothing has changed except that housing prices are rising fast. Now everyone can see it thoroughly, there is no big way out of this Langfang at all.
Recognizing this reality, fewer and fewer people are buying houses, so that there are far more vacant houses in the city than the actual population. Many people also don't understand, how can a prosperous city become a deserted "ghost town" in an instant?
Is it a "pearl" or a "ghost town"?
In fact, to put it bluntly, Langfang is also Beijing, and Beijing is also defeated. If it weren't for the proximity to Beijing and the light of "Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei integration", who would have bought a house there.
But the question is, how can you just count on Beijing for long? If you can't find a decent job in a place, who wants to stay.
Young people graduate and want to go to Langfang to develop, except for real estate, there is no other industry. Want to go to an Internet company, sorry, no, want to go to a high-tech company? Sorry, still no.
What does this do? You can't give up your career just to get a cheaper house. Not to mention Langfang's public services, and it can't keep up with its housing prices, you can think about it, you spent one or two million to buy a suite in Langfang, and it turned out that there was nothing in this hospital, school, or shopping mall.
Children have to go to Beijing to go to school, go to Beijing to see a doctor, and even go shopping. So what is this house bought for, is it used as a warehouse, in the final analysis, the most important thing is to "live" in the house. If you don't live comfortably, it's inconvenient to live, no matter how cheap the house is, what's the use.
And the population of Hebei is actually not so much, if the floating population does not live here often, there are not too many people on a daily basis, but the actual houses are much more, so it looks like empty.
Under the influence of various conditions, the property market in Langfang has repeatedly collapsed, and the population is not as large as before, and the city has also become a sparsely populated "ghost town".
Langfang's tomorrow
The incident in Langfang also reminded the people of the whole country: this house, in the final analysis, is still used for living, not for speculation, and don't keep thinking about exploiting loopholes and disrupting the market order, in the end, the bubble bursts, and no one can escape.
In the final analysis, if you want the property market to develop healthily, you have to return the house to the essence of living. Those who really need a house, such as recent college graduates, young people who are working hard, they can afford to buy a house, they can afford to live in a house, and this is the most important thing.
It is also necessary to increase the construction of affordable housing, so that those low-income families can also have a place to live. The road is long, and there is still a long way to go in the reform of the property market.
Say a thousand things and ten thousand, this house will eventually return to the essence of "living", and the "prosperity" that was once hyped up is just a mirage after all. What happened to Langfang may just be a microcosm of China's property market.
Where will China's property market go in the future? Perhaps no one can give a definite answer. But one thing is certain: only by truly returning the house to the attributes of living can everyone have a place to live, and the tragedy of the "ghost town" will not be staged again.
Information sources:
The original article was recorded in China Business News 2020-8-22 about the Yongqing property market in Hebei Province after the fall from a height
The original article was recorded in the Securities Market Weekly Market No. 2024-07-3 About the Beijing property market survey: the transaction volume of new houses in the three northern counties has risen "three times in a row"! These "just need customers" have made a move
The original article was recorded in China-Singapore Jingwei on December 21, 2020 about the top ten cities with falling housing prices: Langfang ranked first, and Beijing was on the list