Ant Tribe: Making houses by oneself, an alternative to high housing price?

According to Sina.com, 2010 is the year that government regulation of housing price is strictest, as well as the year that the housing price remains extremely stable. In order to get a place to live in the big city where housing price is soaring in the sky, the ant tribe is beating their brains out to survive, thus having created dramatically housing art: Dai Haifei, a 24-year-old newly-graduate in Beijing, built himself a mobile egg-shaped house that is powered by the sun; a graduate majors in mechanical engineering constructed an 9-square-meter intelligent cottage controlled by a mobile phone; a retired miner dug down 6 meters to make a underground room for his wife and daughter; etc. However, most of these self-made houses suffered a short-lived life, for they faced various problems like high rent, enforcement of being torn down, or extreme hot or cold temperature that was not agreeable to live in.

     So how do the students to graduate soon think of the housing conditions and their future? A junior student from Department of History said that the pressure caused by high housing price indeed made them out of breath, especially for those students who choose to work immediately after graduation, and what's more, it had become a thorny issue that couldn't be solved in a short term. "For me, I prefer to find a job after graduation, which means the high housing price will affect a lot my consideration of my job and my workplace. In addition, high housing price exerts extra stress on male undergraduates, and it suddenly comes to my mind that I have to struggle to support my future family," and he admitted that he would choose jobs with higher salary and better bonus, even against his interests.

     Another junior student from School of Electronics Engineering and Computer Science said that most of the billionaires on China's Forbes list were businessmen of real estate while ordinary people couldn't afford to buy a flat. He was a bit of disappointed by the government's ineffective regulation on housing price, and he said that as an undergraduate what he could do was to try his best to study and have confidence in himself to find his way out.

Government: We are trying.

Speaking at a meeting of the World Economic Forum in Tianjin in eastern China, Premier Wen Jiabao pledged that China would keep up its campaign to bring the housing market under control."It is the key responsibility of all levels of governments to stabilize housing prices and to guarantee the availability of housing," he said. "The housing issue is not only an economic problem but also an issue of people's livelihood that affects social stability." Beijing unveiled a series of measures to cool the property market in April amid widespread fears of a potential bubble.

Economists: We still have hope?

It is said that the ever-rising housing prices over these year has shattered the dreams of one generation. It sounds sort tragic, but in fact many talented young in China have given up their initial dreams under the pressure of high housing prices. In other words, the prohibitive housing price has changed people's life. Prof. Su Jan form Department of Economics of School of Economics, Peking University, commented: "the house is too expensive for ordinary working people to buy, and even the ambitious young people have to face the reality. Dreams gradually fade away and cement and steel look more beautiful than dreams. However, I don't think the high housing price situation can last forever. The 2008 financial crisis has proved so. The crisis is a natural reaction to the unreasonable economic structure, and one of the benefits it brings to us in spite of its damages is that it bursts the real estate bubbles and brings the price of capital back to its track, and thus people can afford to buy houses again."

     Now the New Year is around the corner, and there will be another group of students graduating from Peking University six months later. Just as Prof. Su said, "we should have faith in the self-adjustment of economy and such situation will end at last. The housing price will drop as a result of economic crisis, or our salary will rise, and finally we will achieve a balance between housing price and income. Let's prepare ourselves for all the challenges and never give up hope for a better life."