---
type: "Topics"
locale: "en"
url: "https://longbridge.com/en/topics/42025211.md"
description: "A large number of middle-class Chinese are falling back into poverty, but the core reasons are just two: mortgage + wrong investments. The others are just complications.The script for most middle-class bankruptcies in China follows one main storyline: empty six wallets to make a down payment, shoulder a 30-year monthly mortgage, and then think the house is an asset. When prices rise, they look at the valuation every day and feel they are worth millions, but the cash on hand may not even cover one or two years of mortgage payments.Is that an asset? Your house was never your asset; it's the bank's asset, your liability. When prices rise, it's paper value. Because you won't sell, thinking it will keep rising. When prices fall, you can't sell, no one takes it. You didn't cash out when it rose, got stuck with it when it fell, a lifetime mortgage slave.What if the money used to buy the house back then was invested in US stocks? From 2015 to now, the S&P 500 has tripled, the Nasdaq four or five times. An 8 million yuan house in Beijing is now worth 4 million, but if that 8 million was thrown into QQQ back then, it would be 30-40 million now, can be sold anytime, liquidity is right there, no need to list with an agent and wait half a year.<But Chinese people won't do this. Everyone trusts real estate too much. The mother-in-law wants you to buy a house, parents want you to buy a house, banks encourage you to take loans, the government needs land finance. Everyone pushes you into the pit.Actually, Americans also learned this lesson in 2008, the subprime mortgage crisis, all in on real estate, market crash, falling back into poverty overnight. But they got smarter after taking the loss; now the bulk of American household assets are stocks and retirement funds, not the house."
datetime: "2026-06-19T17:29:05.000Z"
locales:
  - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/topics/42025211.md)
  - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/topics/42025211.md)
  - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/topics/42025211.md)
author: "[浩浩荡荡地](https://longbridge.com/en/profiles/19784218.md)"
---

# A large number of middle-class Chinese are falling…


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## Comments (2)

- **小魂淡就是我 · 2026-06-20T00:42:46.000Z**: The entire East market is full of scams