Becoming a Russian Oligarch After Rebirth
Chapter 721: Low-Rent Apartments_1

Chapter 721: Chapter 721: Low-Rent Apartments_1

There were clearly some who disagreed with the committee member’s statement.

Before he could finish speaking, another member retorted.

"Why should young people rush to buy a house right after graduating from university?

Isn’t it alright to rent?

You should know, when we graduated from university, we didn’t consider buying a house, our focus was mainly on work.

Moreover, I am familiar with the real estate situation. In developed countries like Europe and the United States, the majority of young people can’t afford to buy houses.

Let’s take a closer example, in Berlin, over eighty percent of college graduates can’t afford to buy a house within ten years of graduation, they can only rent."

His point was not entirely baseless.

The more advanced the country, and the larger the city, the more people rent.

But he was switching concepts here!

The committee members present were certainly not fooled by him.

Thus, as soon as he finished his rebuttal, another committee member immediately and ruthlessly exposed his "lies".

One member said with a laugh:

"It seems you’ve skipped a fact, comparing to income, our rent in Moscow is ridiculously high!

Although the rent in big cities in developed countries like Europe and the United States is also high, the problem is their income is high enough.

Take Berlin for instance, most recent university graduates have monthly income of around two thousand euros, rent is five hundred euros, leaving about fifteen hundred euros for living expenses.

It’s clear that fifteen hundred euros can maintain a relatively high standard of living even in Berlin.

But what about in Moscow, how much do recent graduates earn?

Three hundred US dollars?

Or five hundred US dollars?

As for rent, as it happens, I also have some knowledge of the situation.

In the city centre, old residential buildings with one-bedroom apartments are already renting for five hundred US dollars a month!

So, can these recent college graduates afford the rent with their salaries?

Or more precisely, what will they live on after paying the rent!"

This committee member indeed revealed the truth of the matter, leaving the previous off the hook.

Because everyone understands that this is the reality!

...

Wang Ye nodded. Although he no longer needed to rent a house and was insensitive to housing prices.

But he knew very well that high housing prices would inevitably bring many ripple effects.

It’s not that high house prices are necessarily bad, but the rise in house prices must correspond with the local level of economic development.

If the two do not match, the aftermath could be quite serious.

As the previous member said, if college graduates cannot afford to pay rent after graduating, how can they be expected to stay and work peacefully?

Even if some people decide to grit their teeth and stay, they can only share rent, enduring relatively poor living conditions.

He frowned, tapped the conference table, and everyone quieted down, turning their heads to look at Wang Ye.

"This is indeed an issue, we always talk about economic development, retaining talent.

But if the most basic living problem cannot be solved, how can we talk about retaining talent?

Moscow has so many renowned universities, every year batches of excellent graduates, this is a precious resource!

If we want to develop the economy, we must have enough human resources, especially high-tech talents.

This is fundamental to everything!

Why is it that despite our constant talk about economic development and the implementation of various support policies, the results are not very good, maybe the root of the problem lies here.

We cannot let housing prices continue to rise unchecked, we must make some responses."

It’s easy to say, but very difficult to implement. The committee members in the conference room began to look worried.

"So what should we do? Are we going to introduce policies to suppress housing prices? This doesn’t sound good. After all, real-estate companies are legitimate businesses, bringing a lot of tax revenue and jobs to the country. Moreover, it would be crude for us to meddle with the market economy so openly, it would not pass public opinion." Someone doubted.

Wang Ye smiled slightly, "That’s simple, we naturally don’t need to interfere with the real estate market."

"Don’t interfere? But how can we control housing prices then? Even if we control them, the majority of recent university graduates will still be unable to afford a house. Ultimately, the income is too low. But to increase income, that would take more than a year or two." Someone sighed.

Indeed, the root of the problem is slow economic development, even regression!

The average income is so low, far behind the rise in house prices, this is a deadlock.

Wang Ye was not panicked because he had a plan. To solve the overall problem of the real estate market is indeed troublesome.

But if we only solve part of the housing problem for young people, this is much easier, there are plenty of successful examples to learn from in the future.

Places like Xiangjiang and Singapore have done very well.

Although house prices are extremely high, it doesn’t cause young people to be homeless, and it doesn’t result in a drain of talent.

He began to speak:

"This problem is easy to solve. The government should build a batch of apartments, all of which are small units, and then rent them out at low prices to those just graduated...

For example, young people within five or ten years of graduation, to provide them with a comfortable living environment, so they can focus on their work.

After five or ten years, when they have enough ability to buy their own houses, they won’t need to rent such apartments anymore.

These apartments could be called...low-rent housing!"

This was indeed a novel idea and the committee members fell into deep thought, considering whether it was feasible.

After a while, everyone started nodding their heads, expressing that this was a good idea.

"Indeed, Director Mikhail is clear-headed. Such a simple strategy is enough to solve the current problems!"

"This is indeed a good way, but it may need a transition period, after all, it requires building a large number of apartments, which can’t be done in a short time."

"We have plenty of land in Moscow. Just the construction cost alone is not very high, and all of them are small apartments, the environment doesn’t need to be too good, it just needs to be conveniently accessible for public transportation. I think this plan is very good, very feasible."

"It sounds good, but building houses requires quite a bit of money, and who’s going to front that money?".....

Listening to everyone discuss, Wang Ye didn’t interrupt. He had set the direction. The specifics would have to be handled by the committee member who proposed the idea.

It can’t be that every detail of every matter should be personally looked after by him, that would be too exhausting.

Moreover, this matter is not difficult to handle. Even the start-up funds needed, are not very much. Since the land is free, just the construction of houses - it’s not a high-end apartment - is actually quite cheap.