This article is reprinted with permission from ONE Literary Life (ID: one_hanhan)
Author: Can’t afford a house
Editor: Jiang Jiang
This was a very difficult interview.
The falling housing prices are already very upsetting, and the conflicts between the couple make it even more heartbreaking.
Some people blame their spouses for losing money on buying a house, and others are eager to divorce and cash out due to the sharp decline in assets.
The first batch of couples whose house prices fell have entered the divorce cooling-off period.
The following are their self-reports:
House prices fell, and I’m getting a divorce too
I’m not the first person around me to get a divorce because of falling house prices.
But I always thought it wouldn’t happen to us, after all, those who divorced because of falling house prices are all rich.
They didn’t have much feelings to begin with, they were tied together because of children and houses.
Now that house prices have fallen, they all want to turn real estate into savings, and divorce and divide the family is also a happy ending.
We are different, we are real workers.
We have two houses, one in Fangshan and one in Qingdao, both bought with loans.
My ex-husband was in a big factory, and I was doing design in a state-owned enterprise. When we bought the house, we were also in the rising period of our careers. We wanted to work hard. Basically, the people around us bought houses at about the same time. Now we also regret it.
（图/《公主小屋》）
We wanted to wait for the house prices in Beijing to rise, and I would have another child in a few years, and then sell the one in Fangshan and buy a smaller one in the city.
But times are changing, and houses are also going bankrupt. Our house directly fell from 2.3 million to 1.6 million.
My husband and my relationship also went bankrupt. The Beipiao couple are sad about everything. I have no hope of promotion, and the company has also brought in an air-drop. His performance has been halved and he is in danger of being laid off at any time. There is no big problem, it’s just that we don’t like each other.
Although we often quarreled during that time, I really didn’t expect him to have the idea of divorce, and I didn’t expect that he had already thought of a specific plan.
“Divorce” and “selling the house”, he mentioned these two things at the same time. He wanted to stop the loss in time before the house and marriage continued to depreciate.
The one in Qingdao was written in his name, his family paid the down payment, and we paid off the loan. The one in Beijing was written in my name, and our parents both contributed, and we both paid the loan.
He wants to keep the one in Qingdao, sell the one in Beijing, and divide the money. The part that our parents contributed is considered a gift.
When I heard him talk about this plan, I was stunned. He didn’t give me any time to react or think.
Of course I don’t want to. Although his family paid the down payment, my family was responsible for the decoration, and there are many things that are complicated and can’t be cut with one knife.
（图/《最完美的离婚》）
I said that if we want to calculate, we should put all the things together and ask a lawyer to talk about the average division.
If he only talks about divorce, I might still be sad and internalize.
But he came up with a set of property division combination punches, and I was instantly covered with thorns, and my mind was full of: just leave, don’t even think about taking away a penny more.
Directly saves the painful steps. What I think about every day is that fortunately I didn’t have a child with him, and fortunately I proposed a divorce at the age of 35 instead of 55.
We are still in the stage of wrangling. The house prices in Beijing seem to be showing signs of recovery, but we are both a little discouraged.
I’m not in a hurry. The house in Beijing was designed by me personally, and I have a deep feeling for it. But I can feel that he is more eager to cash out and return to Qingdao. Maybe he has already thought about a way out.
It’s quite embarrassing. Couples are originally birds of the same forest, but now house prices have fallen and they are running away.
If I hadn’t bought a house,
I don’t dare to imagine how happy I could be now
It’s hard not to quarrel, especially when you bought a non-essential house when house prices were the most expensive.
We bought the house in the autumn of 2021, an old community, a second-hand house, which was said to be fully furnished and ready to move in, but it was actually the old furniture that others didn’t want.
At first, I didn’t agree to buy a house. It was a 10-minute drive from our town to the city. I built a small two-story building in my hometown, and it was quite comfortable to live in, but my wife insisted on buying it, and would divorce if we didn’t buy a house.
We quarreled a lot because of buying a house. She always said, “Everyone else is buying, but I can’t bear it.” If we don’t buy it, it means I haven’t lived a good life with me.
It’s not that I don’t want to buy it, mainly because the house prices in our county are ridiculously expensive. In a county with an average monthly income of 3,000 yuan, the house prices can reach tens of thousands at the highest, and second-hand houses also cost 8,000 yuan per square meter.
At that time, I did make some money from opening a store, and I hadn’t even warmed up the 600,000 yuan in my pocket, and I all invested it in the house. Then the epidemic came, and my store has been losing money. Now I have changed to a small storefront and can only say that it is enough to make ends meet.
I used to be able to close the store and rest when I was tired, but now I don’t dare to stop for a minute, and I’m working in circles.
（图/《最完美的离婚》）
My wife works in a bank, and her salary is about to be paid out. We have two sons, the second one is in full-time class for 1200 a month, and the eldest one will go to high school next year. His grades are not good, and my wife also wants him to go to a private school.
I wanted to sell the house last year, and it has been listed for a year, but it still can’t be sold. Although house prices are falling, the real estate industry is not resting. Several plots of land are under construction, and new communities are all lowering prices. Old communities have prices but no market.
As long as we quarrel, no matter what the reason, we will talk about the house. She blames me for not buying it when it was cheap, and I blame her for choosing the most expensive time to buy it.
Looking at the property fees and heating fees that are about to be paid, now my wife is like a time bomb, scolding the leaders above and the property below, scolding the children on the left and me on the right.
The only thing I’m glad is that I got a parking space when I bought the house, and I can rest there.
In the final analysis,
It’s not all about the house
In our family, buying a house is a protracted war.
From the beginning of 2020, I said that we should take advantage of the fact that the children are young to replace the school district housing first. My husband disagreed, saying that school district housing is not in a hurry to buy, and there will be people selling it later.
Then at the end of the year, the school district housing suddenly started to rise in price, rising by nearly 40%. I didn’t dare to buy it.
The second year, he wanted to buy a school district house again. We put the house in the old city on the market, but there was no news. Finally, someone came to ask the price, which was less than we expected. Originally, I wanted to take a small step back, but he didn’t want to, and he had to get entangled in the three or five thousand, and finally it didn’t sell.
During that time, I don’t know where the small news came from, saying that the borrowing policy would be greatly changed in the future. There were so few good school district housing sources, and now they all depend on grabbing.
It’s not that I’m chicken-baby, it’s that the teachers in the old city school where we live are poor, and the students are also poor, and ghost fire teenagers are running all over the street.
During the epidemic, a distant relative of mine wanted to sell her school district house. I specifically told her that I was interested in buying it, thinking that if the old house couldn’t be sold, I would put it aside first and then buy another one with a loan.
（图/《学爸》）
He also said that we must sell the old house first and then buy a new house. In the end, I didn’t get the school district house and I also offended my relatives.
Then we waited for the real estate market to fall again and again. Now the house has lost nearly 500,000 yuan, and the problem of where the children will go to school next year has not been solved.
As soon as I think of his inkiness in the past few years, I get angry, and I don’t like him no matter how I look at him.
We have never been in sync in communication. I can’t feel it in small things, but as long as he insists on something, I will compromise.
But this matter of the house really makes me feel desperate, and I have perfectly missed every opportunity, and in the end, I didn’t do anything.
The most annoying thing is that someone around us has really “landed ashore”, and they bought it at the most suitable time. Even if the house prices have fallen now, they are still higher than when they bought it.
I also understand that the root of the problem is that he thinks I am short-sighted and only willing to listen to the opinions of his family, and it is useless for me to say anything.
When I think of spending my life with such a person, I feel hopeless.
（图/《不求上进的玉子》）
When rich, the relationship rises, and when poor, the gap arises.
This is my direct feeling after talking with these friends.
A grain of dust in house prices is also a mountain on a person’s head.
In the end, I found that the series of problems caused by the fall in house prices are actually a projection of their inner anxiety.
@太陈了 is still studying the school district housing, which seems to have become her heart disease. She not only worries about her future, but also worries about the future of her children.
@老金 said that he is like a dog that is trapped, and he feels that he is not yet 40 years old and has begun to revolve around cars, houses, and children.
@秋秋 told me that the essence of marriage is to resist risks, reproduce offspring, and protect property.
（图/《1122好夫妇》）
If you can’t do the first two, then do the third.
When I was young, I didn’t understand why we Chinese people have such a deep obsession with houses.
Now that I am no longer young, I also understand that for most people, a house is not just a place to live, it represents assets, it represents a sense of security, and it represents the warmth of home.
Just like our expectations for marriage, we all hope to have a roof that can shelter us from the wind and rain.
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