1 - The sheer volume of real estate policies that core cities have released in this period is itself proof of one thing: a sweeping, fully-formed consensus has been reached, and a new wave of prosperity in the real estate sector is being pursued as a serious, concrete goal.
Objectively speaking, with a consensus this powerful and a direction this clear, “failing to pull it off” is simply not a realistic outcome.
If you are the head of a household — or if you have even a shred of responsibility toward your own life and family — you must start paying attention to how this unfolds, and make the right choices for yourself and your family when the moment arrives.
And then, hear me out with one honest piece of advice: do not, under any circumstances, join the neighborhood elders gossiping in alleyways in their little game of being “clear-eyed and self-aware” contrarians.
When a consensus of this magnitude rolls out in wave after wave, stop being hard-headed. Stop congratulating yourself on how rational and smart you are.
For ordinary people, following the major direction is truly, truly, truly the very best choice you can make.
2 - Every one of you needs to understand this: what lies ahead is an unmistakably clear era of “city stratification.” Just as we each find our level in society based on our abilities, backgrounds, and talents — gradually sorting into the corresponding tier — cities will undergo the same stratification, and it will be nearly irreversible.
If the past few decades occasionally saw certain cities explode overnight in a flash of short-lived glory, that kind of thing will be very hard to see again. Everyone must accept this objective reality.
Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou will carry the heaviest load as the primary economic engines and cores of industrial clusters. Hangzhou, Suzhou, Hefei, Nanjing, Chengdu, Chongqing, and Wuhan will each shoulder their corresponding major roles. Every other city will simply handle the routine tasks of managing its own small patch of ground.
Pay attention — do not tell yourself this has nothing to do with you.
Listen carefully: “An individual’s destiny cannot be separated from personal effort, nor from the course of the times, nor from the influence of the environment one inhabits.”
The trajectory ahead is clear: the truly significant opportunities and era-defining windfalls will be intensely concentrated in these 11 cities. They will command nearly 85% of the resources, while the vast multitude of other cities scramble to divide the remaining 15%.
3 - One more detail worth adding: if you are a reader living in a smaller place, take a good, honest look at the current state of the jobs around you — the salaries, the benefits, the upward mobility. I won’t offer my personal opinion.
I will simply share one key point: unless you or your family holds strong production-class connections, a smaller place will find it very difficult to offer you any future worth looking forward to.
Of course, this doesn’t mean moving to a big city guarantees wealth. But relatively speaking, opportunities will concentrate intensely in the major cities over the coming years.
For an adult, the most dangerous habit is going a long time without updating your understanding of the world — refusing to face the objective changes in reality — and instead persisting in an ostrich mentality, stubbornly clinging to your old views and repeatedly abandoning those “difficult but correct major decisions.”
For example: people move to higher ground; families move toward greater prosperity.
4 - So does this mean smaller places have no future at all?
No — smaller places naturally have a future of their own. But you must also understand: as the times change, smaller places will develop an increasingly stable social ecosystem. Whether that stability is good or bad is a matter of perspective.
Some people may love that sense of unchanging calm across decades — they might call it a life of quiet contentment. Others will find themselves unable to break into the production-class circles and feel a deep, hollow disappointment.
But when it comes to real estate specifically, smaller places will only have “houses.”
5 - From a personal standpoint, I believe that unless a seismic shift in the global order occurs, it will be essentially only those 11 cities mentioned above that can possess genuine real estate.
What is real estate? It is something you hold over the long term and from which you stand to gain lasting value — something where holding it is substantially better than simply holding cash.
I won’t get into the comparative merits of different asset classes here. I simply want to say this: for anyone with meaningful net worth, quality real estate is always, always the most important ballast stone at the foundation of their wealth.
So whenever someone around me expresses doubt about real estate, I tend to respond with a question in return: outside of real estate, what other asset is available to ordinary people — something that can be held long-term and that, through all the ups and downs, will at least keep pace with inflation and yield a decent return?
I’ve raised this question in many articles, and many readers have pushed back — pointing to stocks, insurance, and various other things as alternatives.
But honestly, if you think it through carefully and rationally, none of them hold up against real estate.
Also — please, please, please pay close attention to what is actually being said. I am talking about “real estate” here.
So I don’t particularly recommend that someone with limited reading comprehension suddenly pop up and say, “Look! The house I own in such-and-such county has collapsed in value! Real estate is worthless!”
All I can say is: if a person can’t even read with basic competence, how could you ever expect them to make the right choices when it truly matters?
6 - Honestly, ordinary people have one critical weakness that is particularly fatal: they make major decisions in a snap, but agonize endlessly over trivial ones.
Let me give you the example that I find most baffling — the one I simply cannot make logical sense of.
99% of ordinary people, when it comes to buying a home, cannot clear even the most basic threshold: viewing 100 properties.
What does viewing 100 properties actually mean?
It means going out on foot, stopping at 100 different properties across the full spectrum, observing, comparing, thinking, and studying them — and those 100 properties must cover every type: budget entry-level units, mid-range upgrade homes, premium luxury developments, far suburban areas, city centers, districts under development, finished interiors, bare shells, and everything in between.
That is what we call basic groundwork.
But what most people actually do is reach some point where they decide they want to buy, then numbly shuffle over to a handful of new development sales offices — where the distorted proportions and completely unreliable model apartments, combined with the silver-tongued pitches of on-site sales staff, throw them completely off course and cause them to overlook the most fundamental and important iron rule of home-buying: location, location, location.
Does a person like that deserve any sympathy?
Clearly not. Because someone who pays no attention to the major decisions of their own life — no matter how badly things turn out, no matter how much they lose — has only themselves to blame.
★ - This article won’t have a comments section, because there’s simply no need.
Whether you should seize this opportunity to buy property, where you should buy, and what you should do before buying — all of it has been laid out with complete clarity.
If you’ve read an article like this and you’re still full of doubt and unanswered questions, then hear this honest truth: you are not yet equipped to handle the task of buying a home. It’s beyond your current capability.
In that case, do not blunder forward and play your cards recklessly. Spending time building your foundational understanding is the only path forward.