The dream of buying a house is too far away. High housing prices have forced 280,000 people in Beijing to live in the "rat tribe" living in basements

The dream of buying a house is too far away. High housing prices have forced 280,000 people in Beijing to live in the "rat tribe" living in basements. Xiao Hu, a 35-year-old kitchen worker, was walking in the basement of a high-rise building, dark and...

He and his wife live in a four-square-meter basement, above a luxury apartment building in a downtown area. The monthly rent is 400 yuan, there is no air conditioning, and the so-called bathroom is a smelly public toilet at the end of the corridor.

While showing off the simplicity of his home, Xiao Hu told reporters: "I can't afford to rent a house." In China, it is not illegal to live in a basement. But, as elsewhere in the world, this is nothing to be proud of. Xiao Hu works part-time at a famous Sichuan hot pot restaurant next to the road overhead, killing fish. He said: "If it weren't for saving money, I wouldn't live here." Locals call underground tenants like Xiao Hu the "rat tribe."

Although relevant departments have tried their best to curb real estate speculation and develop affordable properties, the steady stream of rural job seekers and the lack of good investment channels have still caused housing prices to rise. Data last week showed that housing prices in China rose 10% year-on-year in November last year, and have hit new highs every year since 2009. House prices in Beijing increased particularly sharply, reaching 16%, while rents increased by 12%.

As a result, more and more residents who have recently poured into the city are forced to go underground. Some media reported that among the approximately 7.7 million permanent migrants in Beijing, nearly one-fifth live in workplaces or basements. Beijing's housing authorities disputed the data, saying that according to a government survey last year, only about 280,000 migrant workers lived in basements and that only a small proportion of Beijing's basements were used for housing.

The media discovered a group of residents living in the sewers last month, including a 52-year-old car cleaner who has lived there for at least 10 years. Relevant authorities subsequently sealed the manhole covers and the sewer residents were relocated.

The soaring housing prices make the government both happy and worried. On the other hand, rising housing prices have made housing increasingly an unattainable dream for most Chinese people, while widening the gap between rich and poor and breeding social dissatisfaction.

The government has taken response measures, including implementing purchase restrictions and increasing the supply of affordable housing. But with attractive employment and education opportunities in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, the housing problem only seems to be getting worse.

As a result, housing prices in Beijing relative to local average income are higher than those in cities in many developed countries.

The media calculated based on data from the World Bank and US real estate websites that it is three times more difficult for Chinese to buy a house in Beijing than for Americans to buy a house in New York. The monthly rent for renting a 1,000-square-foot (approximately 93 square meters) apartment in Beijing is nearly twice the average monthly income of Chinese people. Unsurprisingly, polls consistently rank rising home prices as one of the issues that most worries adults. For those who struggle to pay high monthly payments, the Chinese invented a term called "house slaves."

In the basement of an apartment building in downtown Beijing, tenants walking back and forth stooped to avoid hitting pipes hanging from the ceiling. A 26-year-old tenant said to me: "This is better than other basements around."

Accommodations located on the basement floor or at work are usually no more than five square meters. Sometimes people cooking in basements can cause fires. At least three similar incidents in Beijing last year were reported to the media.

Because the room was too small, Xiao Hu said it was difficult for him and his wife to sleep on such a small bed. He would basically spend the night in another basement provided by the hot pot restaurant.

My wife really wants to buy a big house above the ground. Xiao Hu said that she would decorate the current basement with plastic bells and flowers found on the street. The dream of buying a house is still far away, and Xiao Hu says that living in the basement has hurt their relationship.