▲An ultra-small apartment in Shanghai, China, with a toilet and a bed in one space. (Source = Hong Kong South China Morning Post capture)
Shanghai’s Apasta, which comes with a toilet and a bed, is being sold in an instant, drawing attention to China’s high housing prices.
On the 3rd, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that an apartment in Shanghai was traded for a monthly rent of 300 yuan (about 56,000 won) even though it was poorly constructed and had a bed right behind the bathroom.
The apartment is small, only about 5 m2 (53 square feet), and is located at the bottom of the stairs, so the ceiling is slanted diagonally. The kitchen and room are separated, but the bathroom and bedroom are adjacent to the front and back, so tenants have to sleep facing the toilet.
Also, there is a shower hanging next to the bed, so be careful not to get the bed wet when washing. A real estate agent also advertised, “Be careful because the bed may get wet when taking a shower.”
He then joked, “Adding air conditioning will increase the rent by 100 yuan (about 19,000 won), but it is unnecessary because living in a room like this will make you feel cold.” He explained, “It is a ‘dream house’ that is hard to miss in the Shanghai real estate market.”
The contract for this poor quality apartment was signed immediately. The lessor is a driver for the car sharing company Didi. It is known that he signed the contract as soon as he saw the advertisement.
However, as this fact became known, attention focused on the problem of high housing prices and rents in large cities in China such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen.
Currently, the average rent for a one-room apartment in Shanghai is over 5,134 yuan (about 970,000 won) per month, but it is known that half of Shanghai’s population’s monthly salary is less than 6,000 yuan (about 1.14 million won). In particular, the average monthly salary of service industry workers such as waiters and cashiers is only 3,500 to 5,000 yuan (about 660,000 to 940,000 won).
For this reason, properties with a monthly rent of less than 1,000 yuan (about 190,000 won) are sold out as soon as they are released, even if the environment is poor, a real estate official said.