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In 2018, the real estate market in Xi'an has been booming. We, who have just graduated and are preparing to return to Xi'an for work, also want to have a sheltered harbor in this city. I still remember that in 2017, I paid attention to houses in Xi'an on Beike. For example, houses near Hangtian Avenue were only 7,000 or 8,000 yuan, but by the middle of 2018, they had basically doubled.

After looking at several real estate projects in the northern suburbs, I was attracted by the high-end sales offices and model rooms, and dreamed of owning such a house. With the idea of ​​buying a large real estate project in one go, I chose the five-star Jia Qianmu project, which cost 12,000 yuan for fine decoration and was 128 square meters. The total cost was 1.53 million yuan, with a down payment of 40%, 620,000 yuan, and a loan of 910,000 yuan. The interest rate increased by 15%, 5.635%, and the monthly payment was 5,250 yuan.

By the way, thinking that I would have to drive in the future because my commute to work was far, I borrowed money and spent 120,000 yuan to buy a parking space. This was the part with the biggest discount.

Although the entrance was covered in mud and it took an hour to get there, as I looked at the high-rise buildings that were gradually being built and thought about the subway station at the door, I realized that as long as I had a house, what difficulties could not be overcome?

■ Stills from "A Year Without a Job"

The house was delivered in August 2020. Seeing the complaints about the quality in the group, I couldn't help but feel nervous. I asked a house inspector to inspect the house. Sure enough, I found problems such as plugs connected in reverse and tiles hollowing. I decided to refuse to accept the house as a silent protest. Half a year later, the repairs on the house can only be said to be better than nothing. I decided to renovate it for my own use. After all, it is my new house. When I took possession of the house, I was told that I had to pay the property fees I owed before, and it was also considered a late payment fee. It took a long time to negotiate to waive the late payment fee, but the property fees cannot be reduced by a penny.

In 2021, I started renovating the house. I was in a dilemma of not wanting to make do with it but knowing that I had to work far away and wouldn't be able to live there for a few years. I thought that if the house was well renovated, it would be easier to sell when I sold it. So I put myself in the other person's shoes and chose better quality materials, customized the whole house, and bought branded furniture and appliances. In the end, including taxes and renovation funds, I spent 250,000 yuan.

After a year of drying, I officially moved in in March 2022. I am still very happy. I moved from the rental house to the new home. I never want to rent a house again. The new house is spacious, bright, warm and comfortable. It also started my commuting life from the northeast to the southwest. I go out before 7 o'clock in the morning, and the Second Ring Road is not too congested. I can get to the office before 8 o'clock and have breakfast, with plenty of time. In winter, as long as it doesn't rain or snow in Xi'an, the road conditions are okay. But once it snowed and the road was icy, Beichen Expressway was closed, and I could only take the auxiliary road. When going downhill, I felt the car slipping, and my heart skipped a beat. I walked to work for an hour and a half that day, and then I found that commuting is tolerable within 1 hour. If it is more than 1 hour, the discomfort increases exponentially.

After get off work, I either leave before 5:30 or after 7:00, which guarantees that I can get home in about an hour. I have also taken the subway near the door several times, which takes about 1.5 hours. I watched people coming and going in the subway, and there were several groups of people, but I still didn't get home.

After persisting for more than a year, I sometimes miss the days when I lived in a rental house. After all, I could sleep until 7 o'clock, but now I have to go out before 7 o'clock. In winter, I basically go out at dark and come back at dark. I have forgotten how spacious and bright it was back then.

In March of 2024, I had the idea of ​​changing my house, so I listed it on Beike. I was full of confidence and felt that my house was good in every way, so I listed it for 258. No matter how much others listed it for, mine was worth that much.

Bad news came one after another. Schools in large communities were delisted. The original five famous schools+, now all teachers and names have been withdrawn. To make matters worse, it is said that a substation will be built next to the community. Residents are saying that there is radiation and it affects health. I don’t know whether it is healthy or not, I only know that the housing prices in the community have been falling. Later, I saw that the housing prices in first-tier cities began to decline, with a 20% drop in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and I was worried that the housing prices in Xi’an would also fall. It turned out that the housing prices in the periphery were the first to collapse. The housing prices in the core area did not fall much, and the houses outside the third ring road fell first.

The prices started to drop, 228-210-205, and I also looked at the houses in the south, Qu 1 and Qu 2. Zhonghai Guanyuan sold a 128-square-meter apartment for more than 300, and the top floor of Qu 2 was also 3 million. The houses in Gaoxin, with an average price of 30,000, and a house age of more than 10 years, made me start to doubt whether I should go from one mortgage to another and more mortgages. Someone suggested that I buy first and then sell, but thinking about the down payment that I couldn't get, and the many uncertainties in the transition, I decided to forget it.

Guarding my own house, there seems to be no other problem except that it is far away.

The change came in December. My husband's job suddenly changed. We used to go to work and go home together, but now we have to go in two directions, one southeast and one southwest. One of us must drive and the other take the subway. After making do for a while, I feel that the huge work pressure plus the exhausting commute are making life lose its meaning.

I went back to renting a house, and after moving out, I prepared to sell the house with all my strength. The fastest way would definitely be to lower the price. We wanted to sell the renovated house and parking space together, and lower the price to a suitable level. More people came to see the house. My original expectation was to at least keep it at 200, but in the end I couldn't even keep it at 195.

Sell ​​it. Selling it means a complete break, and no more tossing and turning. Calculate the cost: 153 for the house + 12 for the parking space + 25 for the renovation tax + 25 for the loan interest, a total of 214, and the final transaction price is 194, exactly 20. There is no way to calculate the other miscellaneous property fees, so just leave it at that.

There is another piece of news, I don’t know if it can be considered good news, but the houses I looked at last year have dropped a lot in price now, and some have dropped in total price by 50. Compared to this, it doesn’t seem so bad.

But I don’t want to be trapped in the mortgage trap again, nor do I want to go through all the trouble and work for nothing for several years to fill the hole.

Reading the discussions online about the rental-to-sale ratio, I feel more and more that buying a house is really low cost-effective.

After a series of operations, from nothing to something, and from something to nothing, I have a new understanding of buying a house, and the house is no longer my obsession.

I remember a sentence on the Internet: refuse mortgages, refuse car loans, refuse the next generation, and you can live freely.

The rented house doesn’t seem that bad.