Rising home prices send China's 'rat race' scurrying undergr
Bareksa • 06 Jan 2014
A gate is silhouetted against residential apartment buildings in the Tianhe district of Guanghzhou, Guangdong province, China (CNBC)
Surging residential prices are both boon and bane to the government.
CNBC - Zig-zagging left and right through a maze of dark, narrow corridors in a high-rise's basement, 35-year-old kitchen worker Hu has joined the many thousands of Chinese fleeing fast-rising property prices by heading down - down underground.
Hu lives here beneath an affluent downtown apartment building, in a windowless, 4 square-meter (43 square-foot) apartment with his wife. For 400 yuan ($65.85) a month in rent, there's no air-conditioning, the only suggestion of heat is a pipe snaking through to deliver gas to the apartments above and the bathroom is a fetid, shared toilet down the hall.