In early August, Beijing suddenly announced that there would be no restrictions on the number of houses purchased outside the Fifth Ring Road. For many homebuyers from Beijing, this means that the attractiveness of the areas around Beijing has further weakened.
Yanjiao Town, which belongs to Sanhe City, Langfang, Hebei, is a direct recipient of this change. The town, only 35 kilometers away from the central area of Beijing (East Third Ring CBD), saw an influx of outsiders around 2010, and now has a population of over a million.
Yanjiao was once regarded as the most promising area around Beijing. In 2010, Beijing’s housing prices rose, and Yanjiao’s real estate market also expanded, with residential unit prices exceeding 10,000 yuan. In 2015, Beijing’s sub-center, Tongzhou, was determined, and a large number of investors poured in, with housing prices soaring from 8,000 at the beginning of the year to over 30,000. From 2016 to 2017, it was the peak of Yanjiao’s real estate market. Before the “317 purchase restriction” was introduced in 2017, some properties were close to 40,000. That was an era when everyone felt that “buying would lead to a price increase.”
Over the past decade, some people firmly believed that “Yanjiao will eventually be incorporated into Beijing,” some bet on the good news that “the subway will be built soon,” and others were convinced that “housing prices will continue to double.” These rumors spread from the sales office to WeChat Moments, making it difficult to distinguish between true and false, but they were regarded as psychological support by homebuyers.
For many people here, Yanjiao has a kind of illusion of “staying in Beijing.” It is precisely this illusion that has pushed them step by step into a dilemma.
Unsellable houses, Beijingers losing money
Looking from Yanjiao towards the Beijing East Third Ring Central Business District
Evan is among the most eager to quickly sell off his property in Yanjiao.
He is a post-70s Beijinger who owned multiple houses ten years ago, which was almost the standard for “successful people” at that time: “The social atmosphere constantly reminds you that if you don’t earn a few more houses, your life is considered a failure.”
In 2017, he and his brother went to Yanjiao to investigate with the mentality of speculating in real estate, and they happened to be in the midst of a hot real estate market.
At that time, the sales hall was packed with people. Post-50s, post-60s from Beijing even formed groups to look at properties in Sanhe, Yongqing, Zhangjiakou, and Tangshan. Once, Evan took the 814 bus from the entrance of the Yanjiao community to the highway, and the experience of arriving at the China World Trade Center in half an hour made him begin to believe in the future of Yanjiao. Soon, he bought a two-bedroom apartment in Fucheng Phase IV, 66 square meters, with a total price of 1.8 million.
In the same year, he bought another house in Zhuhai with a total price of 2.35 million yuan, “Zhuhai has a comfortable climate, and maybe I can use it for retirement in the future.” Including his own house outside the Fifth Ring Road in Beijing, he was burdened with loans for three houses.
Now the house in Zhuhai has shrunk by 700,000 yuan, and the only consolation is that he gets 3,600 yuan in rent per month after renting it out. In contrast, the rent in Yanjiao can only get 1,000 yuan.
The house is unsold, and the anxiety is also accumulating. Under pressure, his investment judgment began to go wrong. In March of this year, he risked adding leverage to buy multiple stock options, and as a result, he lost 2.6 million in a month. Evan had to admit that times have indeed changed. Since last year, the piano teaching and training industry he was engaged in began to collapse, and this year it is on the verge of liquidation. The piano represents elegant taste and symbolizes social status, but the piano “not only costs money, but also costs mothers. How many people have the money and the heart to cultivate their children to play the piano?”
Evan now relies on hiking and fitness to relieve his anxiety. He sees young people complaining on social media about “losing 800,000 or 1 million yuan on buying a house,” and he will reply with self-deprecating remarks: “I’ve lost 2 million yuan to start with, and I’ve also lost more than 2 million yuan on stocks. What can I say?”
Housing prices have fallen, but the ‘Beijing drifters’ don’t want to bother anymore
An apartment complex in Yanjiao, Hebei
Qianqian, a post-80s girl from Northeast China, came to Yanjiao to settle down in 2018, and soon couldn’t adapt to the commute to Beijing. At first, her workplace was in Dongzhimen, and she took the bus from her community to the China World Trade Center every day, and then transferred to the subway. Later, her workplace moved to Fangshan, Beijing, and she simply stayed in the company dormitory every Monday with her luggage until Friday before returning to Yanjiao.
However, Qianqian chose to stay in Yanjiao. The house she bought for 800,000 yuan that year is now listed for only 200,000 yuan, and even if she sells it, she may not be able to recover the down payment from that year.
She feels that after losing hundreds of thousands of yuan, many post-90s ‘Beijing drifters’ in the community no longer have the extra money and energy to “mess around with other houses.”
Qianqian’s situation perfectly reflects the changes in Yanjiao: those who stay here are trapped even deeper.
In the past two years, Yanjiao’s situation has become more subtle, and the already sluggish second-hand housing market has become even more deserted. In the past, landlords could still rely on ‘Beijing drifter’ tenants to fill the community, but now, due to the ‘escape from the first-tier cities’ and the high commuting costs, the vacancy rate has increased significantly.
For many people who stay in Yanjiao, the house can neither be sold nor rented out, so it’s better to stay here.
In June 2021, the Hebei section of Beijing Rail Transit Line 22 officially started construction in Sanhe Yanjiao, and 5 subway stations will be set up in Yanjiao. This became Qianqian’s only hope, but the opening date was postponed to 2026.
Trapped in the ethereal dream of settling down
Buying a house in Yanjiao once fulfilled the dream of settling down for many ‘Beijing drifter’ couples.
In 2016, because she couldn’t afford a house in Beijing, Wenzi and her then-fiancé bought a pre-sale house in Xianghe, Hebei for 1.7 million yuan. Considering the possibility of future appreciation, she also bought the most famous building in Yanjiao, “Seoul Sweet City”, in 2017.
This is a small-property apartment, a 51-square-meter one-bedroom unfurnished house. She paid 800,000 yuan in full to buy this house. That year, Yanjiao’s housing prices hit a high point, and she firmly believed that “being closer to Beijing will always have opportunities for appreciation.”
By 2025, the listing price of this house is 250,000 yuan. It has been listed on the market for three years, but no one has taken over. And the house they bought in Xianghe, Hebei for a total price of 1.7 million yuan, also dropped by 1.2 million yuan this year and was sold for 490,000 yuan.
Also in 2016, Mushroom, who graduated with a master’s degree, was about to get married to her boyfriend. She is from Beijing, and her boyfriend is from Shandong. The two didn’t have much savings. Before the wedding, her boyfriend took a fancy to a 90-square-meter two-bedroom apartment in Yanjiao as their wedding house, and the two bought it for 1.2 million yuan.
A few years later, the two divorced. Along with the broken marriage, there were also housing prices. Mushroom was eager to sell this house to cash in, and finally waited for a buyer, who agreed to a transaction of 1.05 million yuan. At the last moment, the buyer felt that the price of the house had not yet bottomed out and chose to give up.
A few days after Beijing relaxed the purchase restrictions outside the Fifth Ring Road, Mushroom decided to lower the price of the house again, “Sell it if you can, a few thousand yuan doesn’t matter.” In the end, she sold the house for 930,000 yuan to a young couple.
On the day of the transaction, it was pouring rain in Beijing. After passing the Beijing inspection station, Mushroom breathed a sigh of relief: she could finally leave.
“Is there another life?”
A map in a real estate sales hall in Yanjiao
In the more than ten years of living and commuting to Beijing in Yanjiao, Wenzi gradually discovered that the more than thirty kilometers on the map were, in reality, endless running around.
During the morning rush hour, the inspection station can cause people to be stuck for several hours. During special periods, it takes three to five hours to queue up to enter the city. In 2019, Beijing implemented the Beijing Entry Permit system for vehicles from other places, with a maximum of 84 days per year, and the carpooling plan carefully designed by her and her neighbors was completely ruined.
The Moments are filled with “Beijing entry strategies.” Some people buy electric bikes and ride to the subway station, and then transfer to the subway, but in the end, even the road for electric bikes is blocked.
In 2021, the frequent lockdowns completely broke her. In order to be on time for work, she and her husband had to move to a temporary rental house in the East Fourth Ring Road. The house is in Yanjiao, but the people were forced to leave. But even so, the house in Yanjiao is still there, like a lock, preventing them from escaping.
Wenzi, who is 32 years old this year, began to ask herself: Is the kind of life she once agreed with worth living?
The various details of life in Yanjiao are also constantly eroding her confidence. Every summer, heavy rain almost inevitably floods the streets. One year, the water reached her chest, and she spent ten yuan to take a bulldozer’s bucket to cross the street.
She saw a dentist in Yanjiao Hospital once, and was not satisfied, so she went to Beijing for treatment. She worries that her parents will get old, she will get old, and will she still have to go to Beijing?
After experiencing all this, Wenzi clutched the cash flow in her hands even tighter: “I really want to travel to Yunnan, or go to different small cities in the south to experience, is there another life?”
The child who was born not long ago is the motivation for Wenzi to fight again. She doesn’t want him to be like herself, who can only take the college entrance examination in Hebei because of the household registration issue.
Wenzi even thought about going to Tianjin to buy a school district house, but the housing prices there have already been hyped up to 50,000-100,000 yuan/square meter. She shook her head and said softly: “Let’s talk about it in ten years.”
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