50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 482 A Courtyard House for 1000 Yuan

Sun Zhiwei, who was only focused on buying the freezer, had no idea that Tong Jiajia was giving herself a pep talk.

After getting the invoice at the counter, Tong Jiajia paid the money, and the two of them went down to the first floor to complete the delivery procedures for the freezer.

The two then carried the goods they had bought downstairs, retrieved their bicycles from the parking shed using their license plates, and left the Friendship Store.

Around noon, the two returned home with bags and packages. Before they could even finish unpacking, the Friendship Store's delivery truck arrived.

Sun Zhiwei quickly went over to help move the goods. The neighbors at the door saw this and came to see what was going on. Sun Zhiwei did not deliberately avoid people; the more mysterious you are, the more interested people will be.

The neighbors knew that Sun Zhiwei and his wife were both kindergarten teachers, and they also knew that those who broke into their house back then did not end up in a bad way.

Therefore, no one dared to provoke them over the years, and everyone lived in peace for many years. In the last two years, as the environment gradually relaxed, the neighborhood began to liven up again.

A neighbor who was keen on gossip and knew Sun Zhiwei offered to help, asking, "Teacher Sun, what did you buy?"

Seeing that it was a neighbor he knew, Sun Zhiwei stepped forward and handed him a Daqianmen cigarette, then casually said, "You don't have room for your things at home, why don't you buy a couple of cabinets?"

The packaging boxes from the Friendship Store were all in English, and none of the neighbors could understand them, so they just let him fool them.

"Wow, this is quite heavy." The freezers these days are made of solid materials, all metal on the outside. The neighbor who was helping almost dropped it because he wasn't paying attention.

Sun Zhiwei quickly stepped forward and lifted one side of the cabinet, then said, "Please be careful, let me do it. My storefront is too narrow, and people can't get through when there are many people."

This is the truth; the neighbors also knew that their front door wasn't very big, so they quickly let go.

The three deliverymen nearby were quite nice and didn't call him out for calling the freezer a cabinet. The neighbors only slowly dispersed after the two large boxes had been inside the gate.

Actually, the Sun family area hasn't been very peaceful lately, mainly because several large courtyards nearby have been causing some disturbance.

The reason is that many large courtyards have been returned to private ownership by the housing management bureau, but there are regulations that prohibit residents who have already moved in from forcibly evicting them.

Landlords must charge rent according to a uniform standard, and are also responsible for repairing damage to the property and paying property tax.

How much was the rent back then? A 10-square-meter room in a tenement courtyard only cost a little over 1 yuan a month. The rent for a year wasn't even enough to cover the maintenance costs; it was practically a losing proposition.

If the homeowner is an honest person, then they have no choice but to accept the loss. If they really don't want to suffer, they can only sell the house and have some money in hand to feel at ease.

Later generations have said that a courtyard house in that era only cost 1000 yuan, and this is not entirely unfounded. However, this was not the market price; it was only the price paid to the government.

Generally speaking, when the government acquires courtyard houses, the price for a better courtyard can be higher, ranging from 150 to 200 yuan per room.

If it's a rather dilapidated courtyard, you'll only get 100 yuan per room. If it's a small room with an area of ​​only seven or eight square meters, you can only get 50 yuan per room.

So, if you calculate it that way, a small courtyard with seven or eight rooms would only cost 1000 yuan.

Even at such low prices, some people still sell their houses to the government. As for the reasons, you can figure them out yourself.

Of course, there are honest people, and there are also stubborn ones who neither charge rent nor care about repairs, just letting things drag on.

Another type is even more aggressive, who has the ability to cause trouble at the tenant's unit every day, while also harassing the tenant, until they are driven away and the property is completely taken back.

The third type is the very aggressive type. They either have status or connections overseas, and can get help from relevant departments to resolve the issue and reclaim the house more quickly and effectively.

Regardless of the method used, once the houses are fully recovered, the price will no longer be 100 yuan per room, but will fluctuate according to market conditions. Better houses can sell for 2000 yuan per room, and a large courtyard house with three courtyards can now sell for more than 10 yuan.

These days, young people generally don't like living in traditional courtyard houses. They freeze to death in winter and swelter in summer, and there's no toilet in old courtyard houses.

They all preferred living in apartment buildings because they had heating and bathrooms. Later, quite a few elderly people sold their traditional courtyard houses to buy apartments for their children and grandchildren.

However, the two children in the Sun family did not have this idea, because their home had a heated floor and underfloor heating, as well as a self-built bathroom and shower room.

In winter, the heated walls and floor heating make it very warm, unlike the suffering in a typical courtyard house.

Speaking of apartment buildings, one cannot help but mention the two newly built buildings on Tuanjiehu North Second Street last year, which can be said to be the earliest commercial housing in Beijing.

The two buildings had a total of 161 apartments, each 60 square meters, at 400 yuan per square meter, making each apartment over 2 yuan. It took more than half a year to sell them all.

Decades later, the price of housing there rose to over 7 yuan per square meter, and the entire house cost around 400 million yuan, which is more than 200 times the original price. But compared to the increase in the price of courtyard houses, that is nothing.

Sun Zhiwei recently heard about the current situation when he had some free time, so he thought about buying two courtyard houses, renovating them to be more modern, and leaving one for each of his two children in the future.

However, Aunt Liang from the other side of the street retired a couple of years ago, and he doesn't know anyone on the street anymore.

Because he has spent more time away from home than at home in recent years, he really couldn't find anyone to entrust this matter to for the time being.

Moreover, this matter cannot be rushed, because most of the courtyard houses nowadays have property rights issues, or they are occupied by "tenants" who are not to be trifled with.

"Rental tenants" refers to those who moved in around 56 due to the policies at the time. These tenants could only terminate their leases themselves; landlords were not allowed to forcibly evict them.

Without some strong skills and connections, this matter would be very difficult to handle, and he didn't want to get into trouble over a house.

He had heard that even decades later, in the 21st century, there were still lawsuits being filed for this reason.

After the deliveryman from Friendship Store left, Sun Zhiwei moved the two disassembled freezers from the yard into the basement and installed them.

Fortunately, the electrical circuit in this house was oversized. Back then, that spy installed a high-powered radio here, so the house's electricity meter had no problem running through the freezer.

After the freezers were installed, Tong Jiajia asked about the two freezers. Sun Zhiwei told her to be patient and that they would find out tomorrow.

At night, Sun Zhiwei would ride his family's tricycle out, and then he would make trip after trip back to transport things.

Two whole cut-up pigs were transported back, along with a large quantity of steaks and sausages, filling two freezers to the brim.

The steak and sausages were obtained from the US military base last time. I took a lot of them, so keeping some at home isn't a big deal.

While pork may seem plentiful, it's actually just a drop in the ocean compared to the entire capital. Every day, numerous live pigs from the surrounding rural areas are brought to the "ghost market" for sale.

He went to the ghost market at night, bought two animals, had the butcher cut them up, and then transported them home.

Tong Jiajia knew he had gone out during the night, so she went to the basement to check on him as soon as she got up the next morning.

When she saw the freezer filled with meat, she nodded in satisfaction and said nothing more.

(End of this chapter)