Snail House

1 comment on Hacker News

1. Neutralhandle584Jun 8, 2026

   Ah my bad, my brain was reading Snail House [0], a popular fiction that got adapted to an even popular tv series and its theme is on living in Chinese apartments.

   While nail house is the Chinese version of holdout [1], and it exists everywhere. In China it is never regarded positively but always linked with forced eviction [2]. The eminent domain rule requires market rate compensation, which is not possible in many cases because of state ownership and the dual rural-urban land system. It is basically how China financed its growth for around three decades, get rural lands paying out penny, then sell it to some developer for a fortune.

   For the land use right duration I believe it has always been 70 yrs [3]? Renewal or not is not a big problem right now, because real estate took off in the 90s, so we still have four decades to go and see.

   For foreigner China can be a bit on the rosier side, because of their subtle reverse-racism? Like in universities the dorm for international students is better than the domestic ones, and where expats live is usually a nicer part of the town. Nevertheless, among my Chinese colleagues one the top reasons for immigrating to US is always better and cheaper housing. A couple years back I was surprised to learn that a modest ~700 sqft apartment in Shanghai or Peking easily went for $1M! Since then they had an almost 50% crash post covid but still, impressive.

   [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwelling_Narrowness

   [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holdout_(real_estate)

   [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_requisition_in_China

   [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_law_in_China#Obtaining_land_use_rights