I finally understand why so many people jump off buildings because of high mortgage payments. After my friend told me, I broke out in a cold sweat. She bought her house in 2019.

At that time, she bought a pre-sale property near the third ring road in Zhengzhou, with a price of about 16,000 per square meter. She ultimately purchased a 120-square-meter house for 1.9 million yuan, paying over 6,000 yuan a month. After the interest rate was lowered, her monthly payment was still around 5,700 yuan. This year, she has been paying for six years. Her earning ability is not as good as before, and her child is about to go to college, so she is thinking of selling the house. She plans to buy where her child will settle down in the future.

Last week, she listed the property with an agent. They said the highest transaction price for this 120-square-meter house last month was 125 million yuan. Since the house is shell and core, they suggest selling at 120 million yuan!

This means the house has depreciated by over 700,000 yuan. She made a down payment of over 600,000 yuan, has paid for six years, and still owes more than 1.1 million yuan. The house can only be sold for 1.2 million yuan. To sell, she needs to cover various fees herself, including taxes. After the sale, she would have only 20,000 to 30,000 yuan left.

She said she kept thinking about why so many people jump off buildings because of high mortgage debt. If she and her husband lost their jobs in a big city, and they had to borrow heavily to buy a house, paying seven or eight thousand or even over ten thousand yuan a month, with a family and children, it would be impossible to sustain. With elderly parents on one side and young children on the other, it’s even harder. Especially for young people today, aged 30-40, all the pressure is on themselves. Most loans are leveraged to the max. Sending children to good schools costs a lot, and where do they put that monthly expense? Opening or closing their eyes, breathing, it’s all money.

She discussed with her family, and in the end, she still wants to sell. She originally thought the house would appreciate in value, but it turned out to be a loss-making deal. Given the current situation, prices might fall even more in the future, and this house could lose even more value. Every additional month of mortgage payments means earning 6,000 yuan less.

After hearing this, I couldn’t calm down for a long time. Is buying a house really necessary? Do children have to attend top schools? What is everyone really doing all this for?