Get rich quick starting with buying a house with zero down payment

Lei Guoliang thought to himself that he had been so focused on big cities that he had overlooked the fact that his hometown county also had the opportunity to get rich.

My hometown, a county town, is close to the provincial capital. Back in 2003, houses were still sold by the unit.

In 2005, housing prices were around 1000 yuan per square meter. By 2006, prices had risen to 1,500 or 1,600 yuan per square meter, and in 2007, they jumped to 2,500 or 2,600 yuan per square meter, or even more than 3,000 yuan per square meter.

In 2016, housing prices rose to over 12,000 yuan per square meter, and that was just for unfinished apartments; those with luxury renovations cost over 16000 yuan per square meter.

Meanwhile, during the same period, the housing price in Baisha City, the capital of Hunan Province, was only 6000 yuan. The housing price in Jiangcheng City, the capital of Hunan Province, was no more than that.

At that time, there weren't any decent housing developments in my hometown county. The house my second nephew bought was in a newly built community, a mixed-use development with shops on the first and second floors and a planned pedestrian street.

Built along the river, it is an urban redevelopment project that attracted 1200 million yuan in investment from out-of-town investors and 600 million yuan in relocation and resettlement costs.

There seem to be only five or six hundred residential units, but there are quite a few shops, several hundred in total.

A unit for 6 yuan, I think it's 128 to 130 square meters, that's a real bargain! And it's a river view apartment.

Should I go back and buy a hundred or so units? Even though they're just unfinished apartments, they're cheap. Buying 100 units outright would only cost 600 million, and I could make 600 million in a year if I just held onto them.

In 2016, the price would have increased 20 times, turning six million into one hundred and twenty million.

"Big sister, I'll go back and take a look!" Lei Guoliang said immediately.

Before my parents were alive, the house, though old, was still nice as long as people lived there. But after they passed away, the house deteriorated so quickly that now when I go back, it feels like it's uninhabitable.

When my parents were still alive, I could go back home and have a hot meal and lie on a made-up bed.

Now that I'm going back, I can't even cook for myself. I have to buy new pots and pans because the pots at home are already rusted and unusable.

Staying at home for a few days means starting everything over again, cleaning and tidying up the house – it's too tiring and not worth it.

In addition, the house leaked and no one cared. The walls of the old houses were made of mud bricks, which were not fired at all, but just dried.

This kind of wall, combined with the leak, is very easy to collapse.

Later, when he had to go home for business, or when he went back to his hometown to pay respects to his parents' graves during the Qingming Festival, Lei Guoliang would stay at his eldest sister's house for one or two nights before hurriedly returning to Shenzhen.

This is also a major reason why Lei Zhenliang rarely went home after his parents died before his rebirth.

If you own a house in the county town, even if you haven't been back to live there for a long time, it's easy to clean and tidy up when you go back for the New Year, since it's an apartment building, unlike a tiled house.

When Ji Fanyin heard Lei Guoliang say he was leaving, she was reluctant, but she still helped Lei Guoliang pack his luggage.

"I have some business to attend to back in my hometown, but I'll be back soon. I'll be spending the Spring Festival in Shenzhen this year. Do you want to go back to your hometown for the Spring Festival?" Lei Guoliang said, putting his arm around Ji Fanyin.

"Since you're spending the New Year in Shenzhen, of course I'll stay and celebrate with you. Otherwise, I won't feel comfortable leaving you alone in Shenzhen for the New Year," Ji Fanyin said with a smile.

"Won't your parents say something or be unhappy if you don't go home for the Chinese New Year?" Lei Guoliang asked.

"They'll definitely say a few words to me, but it's okay. I just tell them I'm too busy with work and have to stay to work overtime, and they won't say anything more."

If it weren't for Lei Guoliang, Ji Fanyin would definitely have gone home to spend the New Year with her family.

But right now, in Ji Fanyin's heart, staying in Shenzhen with Lei Guoliang for the New Year is clearly more important than going home to spend the New Year with her family.

The next morning, Ji Fanyin drove Lei Guoliang to the airport to see him off.

The plane arrived at Hongdu International Airport, the provincial capital of Lei Guoliang's hometown, in less than two hours.

Lei Guoliang chose to take a taxi directly to his hometown, Yunzhou City.

Yunzhou City is 60 kilometers away from the provincial capital. It is a county-level city under the administration of Mingyue City, with a population of 800,000. Its economy is developing well. It is known as the hometown of automobile transportation, the hometown of calligraphy, and a base for the building ceramics industry.

It is also a land of fish and rice, a major grain-producing county, a major pig-producing county, and a pollution-free vegetable planting base.

The taxi drove directly to the best hotel in Yunzhou City, which is also the only three-star hotel in the city: Yunzhou Holiday Hotel.

After checking into the hotel, Lei Guoliang went to the street and ate a bowl of Yunzhou rice noodles. It wasn't that the hotel food was bad or too expensive, but that the Yunzhou rice noodles on the street were the most authentic.

As a native of Yunzhou, when I return to Yunzhou, the thing I crave most is a bowl of authentic Yunzhou rice noodles.

After finishing my rice noodles, walking on the familiar streets of Junzhou felt so warm and welcoming. I had that sense of peace and comfort that only comes with returning to my hometown.

This is perhaps why many people hope to return to their hometown until they die.

Yunzhou City is divided into the South City and the North City by the Jinjiang River, which runs through the city. The South City is more commercially prosperous, while the North City is where various government departments and administrative agencies are located.

Walking on the ancient pontoon bridge, Lei Guoliang's destination, the Jinjiang Bund, is on the opposite bank.

The commercial pedestrian street is not yet operational; there are only a few scattered shops under renovation, mainly concentrated at one end and the other, which are the entrances and exits and areas with high pedestrian traffic.

Apart from the staff, there were hardly any people in the sales office.

It seems that sales are not going very well.

In the sales office lobby, there are advertisements for buying a house with a mortgage loan.

However, in 2003, in a county-level city like Yunzhou, there were probably very few people who were truly willing to take out a mortgage to buy a house.

People still hold the idea that they should buy a house with cash outright. If they don't have enough money, they borrow from relatives and friends. Few people think about taking out a mortgage loan from a bank to buy a house.

Taking out a loan to buy a house incurs interest, while borrowing money from relatives and friends to buy a house is interest-free. You can pay it back when you have the money, or postpone it for a few years if you don't.

There's no repayment deadline, no so-called overdue period, so it's definitely more cost-effective than going to the bank for a mortgage loan to buy a house.

The houses on Jinjiang Bund are all fully built and ready for immediate occupancy. You can hire someone to renovate and move in right away after purchasing them.

The only downside is that it's not fully renovated, so you can't just move in and rent it out immediately.

Looking at these buildings that clearly lacked foot traffic, Lei Guoliang quickly made a mental calculation.

A unit of 128-130 square meters, priced at 6 yuan, was a huge sum for locals in a county-level city in 2003, given their income and mindset. Coupled with the lack of awareness of buying a house with a loan, sluggish sales were inevitable.

Moreover, at that time, rural people did not have the concept of buying houses in the city, unlike later, when people in the countryside who did not buy houses in the county town were not even eligible to get married.

Many people consider owning a house in the county town as a condition for getting married.

But for him, this was an almost free bargaining chip.

He walked into the deserted sales office, where a young salesperson greeted him listlessly.

"Sir, are you looking to buy a property? We have both residential and commercial properties. Residential units start at 6 yuan each, and they are all large units."

"How many houses do you have in total? How many are still unsold?" Lei Guoliang asked directly.

The salesperson paused, glanced at his ordinary attire, and hesitated, "Residential... a total of 528 units. Right now... there are probably around 300 units left. You're asking about this...?"

"If I take it all, I'll take the rest too. What's the price?" Lei Guoliang dropped this bombshell that had worked every time in Mingzhou and Hangzhou.

The salesperson was completely dumbfounded, stammering, "You...you want them all? Over four hundred sets? Sir, you're not kidding, are you?"

"I flew back from Shenzhen, I don't have time for jokes. Call your manager or boss." Lei Guoliang's tone was calm, but carried an undeniable pressure.

The salesperson hurriedly ran to the back. Soon, a man in his forties, wearing a leather jacket, who looked more like a construction foreman than a developer, strode out, his eyes filled with suspicion.

This is a small local cooperative developer surnamed Liu.

"Boss, what's your surname? I heard you're going to buy all the remaining houses from us?" Boss Liu looked Lei Guoliang up and down.

"Your surname is Lei. Yes, I want all the remaining houses. But I'll only give you 5 per unit."