How did the rich second generation buy and rent houses in the early Qing Dynasty?
From "Jin Ping Mei" and "Dream of Red Mansions", we have a rough understanding of the ancient people's spending on housing. For example, "Jin Ping Mei" reflects the price of goods in the late Ming Dynasty. A house with "two rooms on the front and four floors on the bottom" in a prosperous area of Qinghe County, Shandong Province was priced at one hundred and twenty taels of silver. An ordinary bungalow with "two rooms on the front, two floors, and four rooms" only costs thirty-five taels. The price of renting a house is even cheaper. Wu Da, who sells cooking cakes, rented a two-story courtyard in front of the county gate. The second floor is a two-story building for only a dozen taels of silver. In the book, the mansion with "seven rooms on the front and five floors at the bottom" has an asking price of one thousand two hundred taels.
As for the price of rent, "Jin Ping Mei" is almost never mentioned; only in Chapter 93, it is mentioned that an old man gave Chen Jingji five hundred copper coins and one tael of silver, saying that the silver could be used as capital to make a house. For a small business, copper coins will "take you out and rent half a room to live in" - that may be two or three months' rent.
The housing prices in "The Legend of Awakening Marriage" are significantly higher than those in "Jin Ping Mei". Chao Yuan's family was in Wucheng County, Shandong Province. After his father became an official, he spent 6,000 taels of silver to buy Shangshu Ji's mansion, with eight floors in front and back. As the saying goes, "The Hou family is as deep as the sea, how can I allow old friends to knock on it?"
Chao Yuan lived on the second floor with his beloved concubine Zhen Geer; his first wife Ji lived with two maids and an old woman on the seventh floor, with several floors of vacant rooms in between. ——Although this house is deeper and wider than the five-story house in "Jin Ping Mei", the price is actually seven times the former, about RMB 2.1 million. Isn't it a bit outrageous?
Let’s make a comparison with housing prices during the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty. The wife and brother-in-law of Cao Xueqin's grandfather Cao Yin, Suzhou weaver Li Xu, was confiscated in the first year of Yongzheng (1723). His family property in Beijing included hundreds of houses, and the prices were as follows:
Caochang Hutong tile-roofed house 225 There are eleven verandahs with a discount of 8,094 taels of silver (all 34.3 taels); sixteen tile-roofed houses in Ruan Mansion Hutong, a discount of 343 taels of silver (both 21.44 taels); Changchun Garden Taiping Village There are forty-two tile-roofed houses and eight stable houses, worth one thousand six hundred and fourteen taels of silver (32.28 taels each). In Fangshan County, in addition to garden houses and gardeners, there are 210 tile-roofed houses, 28 side buildings, 12 stable houses, and 11 earthen houses in Xinzhuang, Ding Mansion. One thousand four hundred and fifteen taels (average 9.26 taels). ?
The property of Ma Er, the slave who handled Li Xu’s estate, was found. There were twelve and a half tile-roofed houses and three verandahs in Black Sesame Hutong, with a total of 429 taels of silver (all 27.68 taels); there are fifteen tile-roofed houses in Linzhongfang, worth 570 taels of silver (all 38 taels). ?
It can be seen from the inspection and appraisal that at that time, the average price of a house in the capital with a good location and high quality could reach 3788 taels, and the worse ones were more than 20 taels. As for the houses in suburban farms such as Fangshan, they can be as low as less than 12 rooms - of course, they are on average with side buildings, stables, and mud houses.
The valuation of confiscated properties is generally low. After weighted calculation, the average price of high-quality houses in the capital in the early Qing Dynasty was fifty or sixty taels per room. For an old official residence located in Wucheng County, Shandong Province, it would be nice to have half this price. The eight-story Shangshu residence purchased by Chao Yuan has only fifty or sixty rooms, even if it has seven rooms. Even if there are courtyards, pavilions, gardens, etc., the total number of rooms will not exceed a hundred. Based on 25 taels per room, the total price will not exceed 3,000 taels. Even if housing prices rose and fell in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, Chao Yuan still made a "big loss" after spending six thousand taels!
However, it is not surprising that this house transaction happened to Chao Yuan. Chao Yuan is a dandy described by the novelist. He gets rich suddenly, spends extravagantly, trades with others, and is often slaughtered and deceived. Therefore, although the price of these six thousand taels is exaggerated, it is not out of the ordinary.
Although houses in Beijing are more expensive, they are still acceptable. In the 76th chapter of "Awakening the World", Grandma Tong bought a "small house in the back alley of Jinyiwei Street in Beijing, which is very spacious inside and outside, and cost 360 taels of silver." The book does not mention the layout of the courtyard, but looking at the description later, there is a "main hall", a "middle door", and a "back". There should be at least three or five rooms in front and two or three floors in depth. ——Based on fifteen houses, the average price of each house is twenty-four taels.
The author of "Awakening the World" should have been to Beijing and is familiar with the area around the first three gates (Zhengyangmen, Chongwenmen, and Xuanwumen). Many of the relevant place names are mentioned in the book. The specific location of such a house is "Jinyiwei Houhongjing Hutong" - now known as "Houhongjing Hutong", located in the Xijiaomin Lane area. It was demolished when the National Center for the Performing Arts was built in 2007. An ancient well was dug out at that time, which may be the origin of the name of the alley.
"Awakening the World" only mentions renting a house in one or two places, and does not mention the price. Instead, there are many places where renting a house is mentioned. As mentioned earlier, Instructor Shan’s house was bought by Yang Shangshu from across the street for one hundred and fifty taels and rented to Professor Xue. The monthly rental price was one or two and five cents, that is, the monthly rent was equivalent to one percent of the house price. .
The rent in Beijing was also mentioned. For example, in Chapter 54, it is written that Di Yuan took his son Di Xichen to Beijing and found a residence on the east side of the Imperial Academy. , it is rented with furniture, with nine rooms connected to the corridor, and a small courtyard in the middle. The monthly rent is three taels of silver. If the rent is one percent of the house price, this house is worth three hundred taels of silver. Compared with the children's houses in Houhongjing Hutong, the unit price is much more expensive. ――Is it because this place is not far from the Imperial College and belongs to the "school district room"?
However, compared with today’s housing prices in big cities, housing prices at that time were still quite low. For example, Grandma Tong's small courtyard is worth less than 130,000 yuan today. The small courtyard of the Imperial College rented by Di Yuanwai is priced at just over 100,000 yuan. Nowadays, a two- or three-bedroom unit can easily cost 2 to 3 million yuan or more, but the monthly rent is only 4,000 to 5,000 yuan, less than two thousandths of the price. If calculated based on the ratio of rent to house price at 1:100, the house price in big cities today should be reduced to 4 to 50,000 yuan per house, or the rent should be increased to 20,000 to 30,000 yuan per month, which is more appropriate.
But there were also houses with cheap rent at that time. For example, the cook You Cong saved a few taels of silver, took his wife out to live, and "rented two houses for 200 yuan a month." ——There are only two rooms. They are probably the kind of gray-roofed bungalows that are cold in winter and hot in summer. Two hundred copper coins are worth two cents and a half of silver, and the monthly rent for each room is one cent and two cents; obviously it cannot be compared with the rent of three cents and three cents for each room in Di Yuan's foreign school district.
(This article is excerpted from my own book "Jinsu Scholars". If it is reproduced, please indicate the source)