How long does it take you to buy this home?

In the traffic congested city streets, an advertiser was busy handing out flyers for the newly constructed condos. “Beautiful homes, starting at 29,800 yuan per square meters”, one flyer ended up in the hands of a cab driver who was waiting in traffic. He looked at the flyer and thought “It takes 125 years in order to buy this home”. That made his nose bleed.

A young man got into the cab and picked up the flyer on his way to work. Up in the elevator, punched his time card at exactly 9 am, he rushed into his cubical to start his day of work. Then he read the flyer and thought “It takes 87 years to buy this home.” Foaming at the mouth, he threw the ad into the trashcan.

A cleaning worker lady at this company picked up the trashcan and also saw the ad. “It takes 255 years to buy this home”, she broke into tears.

A rich boss got the flyer, accompanied by his mistress, he went to the real estate office in his Mercedes Benz. Looking at the miniature model of the residential community, he thought “It takes 5 days to buy this home”. But he soon was distracted by the beautiful real estate agent and started drooling over her. Woken by the fist of the unhappy mistress next to him, “I will take 5 of them” he said. The mistress seemed to be still unhappy and gave him a good nudge on the shoulder, “oh no, I will take 6” he reacted quickly. Now she was happy and thought, “It takes 1 nudge to buy this home”.

While the homes are still being constructed, a construction migrant worker of the homes picked up the ad. Looking at it, he thought,“It takes 514 years to buy this home”, blood dripped down under his helmet. Buried in this thought while working on the high rise, he slipped and felt from the building…

“Cut!” the director yelled and stopped the filming of this music video. Then he picked up the prop used in the video – the flyer. Blood started gushing out of his mouth, “Calculating according to the payment of this music video, it takes … years to buy this home“.

This is the music video of China’s pop singer Huang Zheng’s (黄征) new song “Sell” (卖). In less than a week since was posted on the internet, it already had over 1.3 million views. Netizens called it “the most hopeless music video in the history”.

The music video mocks the sky-high real estate prices in China. A home that costs 29,800 yuan per square meters triggered different reactions with people of different social classes in China. What (or how long) does it take to buy a home? Cab driver needs 125 years, white collar worker needs 87 years, cleaning worker needs 225 years and the construction migrant worker who actually builds the homes needs 541 years. But the big boss only needs 5 days, and the mistress he keeps only needs “a nudge”, no wonder the cab driver’s nose bled, the white collar worker was foaming at the mouth, the cleaning lady broke out in tears, the big boss drooled over the pretty real estate agent while buying 5 homes and the construction worker could only jump off the building… These are the bitter truth that would make (most) people feel hopeless.