Our Generation is an Anomaly

@WangYou: Last night, someone in the comments asked me, "How high can a 'small-town test taker' (a top student from a humble background) reach purely through studying, without family support?"
Because it feels like "3 million in savings doesn't sound like much, but earning 300,000 a year is hard, so saving 3 million is almost unrealistic."
I can explain this contradictory perception: no one's 3 million was saved up purely by earning a 300,000 annual salary and working hard; it came from the appreciation of real estate.
Don't even think about it now, those good days are gone.
The difficulty faced by test takers graduating now is far greater than what I faced taking the college entrance exam 20 years ago.

At first glance, this sounds arrogant—what kind of family thinks 3 million in savings isn't much?
But I understand that vague feeling: small-town test takers come to big cities, thinking, "I'm a top student, I broke through the siege to get here, it shouldn't be a luxury to live in a two-bedroom apartment, right?"
You take a look: 5 million. And it requires a long commute. 3 million in savings suddenly looks a bit pale. It just doesn't feel like enough.

But for a normal person, saving 3 million is as hard as reaching the sky—
Yesterday, using my college test-taker classmates as an observation sample, I concluded that reaching an annual income of 500,000 is a relatively safe baseline.
Reaching a million is harder, but still fairly common.
Anything higher is very difficult; there are those with net worths over a hundred million, but they are anomalies with no reference value.

Even for these incredibly capable test takers, let's say they earn 500,000 a year. How long do you plan to save to get 3 million? The answer is, you can't save that much just by scrimping.
It all relied on catching the previous real estate boom.

Test takers of my age give people an illusion:
Clearly, it was while we were working hard that the economy experienced rapid growth.
While we were studying and working hard, our personal income and assets saw significant increases.
With long-term growth and confidence in the future, people were willing to spend and borrow.
When we started working, houses were already getting expensive, but not yet absurdly so.

So studying hard equaled earning an annual income of 200,000.
It equaled putting down a 1 million down payment on a 3 million house in a tier-1 city with a 2 million loan, and then watching the house appreciate to 8 million while income grew to 500,000.
People saw this and thought, "Ah, studying hard means you can earn 500,000 a year and live in an 8 million house."
Hearing that, 3 million sounds pretty reasonable.
The above is the typical middle-class development path for someone my age.

That doesn't happen anymore—
Now, jobs paying 200,000 a year aren't as common, and growing that income to 500,000 isn't easy either.
Now, houses already cost 8 million.
A house bought with a 1 million down payment and a 2 million loan won't appreciate to 8 million anymore.
Moreover, you wouldn't dare easily take out a 2 million loan; people no longer believe their income will significantly increase in the future.
If you also don't believe housing prices will soar, why burden yourself with a mortgage to buy a house?

Then how would you dare to have children?
A few years ago, people talked about the "middle-class bankruptcy trio," which included sending kids to international schools.
You rarely hear that now; people don't dare to send their kids to international schools anymore.
Those who did have already gone through a round of bankruptcy.

Don't give me that nonsense about annual incomes of 500,000 or 1 million during the era of demographic dividends.
I work in the real estate industry, and I've seen a massive number of middle-aged people see their incomes drop from 500,000 to 200,000.
Many who once earned over a million a year are either outright unemployed or have returned to their hometowns.
Others have dropped back to just over 200,000.
Those so-called high salaries back then were actually only earned for about 5 years.
Truth be told, 200,000 is a very impressive annual income; don't be fooled by the internet.

As for achieving an 8 million house through your own hard work, that's no longer included in the package for today's test takers.
Give up the illusion.
3 million in savings is a huge amount; don't compare it to housing prices, compare it to your own salary.

Today's test takers are very clear-headed: if you don't let me share the dividends of growth, why should I stay in a tier-1 city?
Just to make contributions?
That's why last year, some tier-1 cities saw a net outflow of population.
The test takers are no longer playing the game with the old guard.

As for asking me, "What height can one reach without family support?"
You cannot "not rely on family support"; nowadays, you must rely on it.
If a small-town test taker's family doesn't have much money, they have to provide support in other ways.
Because test takers have pushed their studying to the limit and possess extremely strong personal abilities, making it hard to outdo one another, excluding the outliers with excessive ability, the competition actually relies more on family support.

This family support doesn't even need to be massive; a small boost at the starting line will create very complex changes at the finish line.
Take the example I mentioned: my test-taker classmate was financially drained by their family, forced to buy a house in their hometown to give back to them.
They perfectly missed the real estate boom and caught the full brunt of the decline.

A small boost at the starting line, a massive change at the finish line.
A family not causing trouble is also part of the support.

My own family provided me with excellent support.
They respected my judgments on major issues, didn't cause trouble for me, and gave me a few hundred thousand at the most critical moment of buying my house.
That few hundred thousand was very difficult for my family to gather; they had to save for a long time.
But it helped me through the hardest times back then, and now I can give back to them.

A few hundred thousand might seem like "pocket change" on today's internet, but some people get a few hundred thousand in family support, while others have to hand over a few hundred thousand to their families.
Some parents forcefully interfere in their children's career decisions, while others at least don't mislead their kids.
Some parents ruin their children's chosen relationships over premarital conditions, while others bless the new family.
These are all different.
Over a decade after graduation, small differences at the starting line have impacted the present.

There are also some of my test-taker friends whose families can provide a loving environment, with the whole family striving toward a common goal.
Even if the family doesn't have much money, they help secure educational resources for the next generation.
They help the family's top competitor carve out some time to strive, which is also a form of support.
When it's time to rely on your parents, you should rely on them; there's no other way.

I am fully aware that if I have children in the future, they will have to leech off me.
I am the anomaly in my family; my children can't possibly work as hard as I did, and even if they did, they wouldn't catch the good times where hard work guaranteed returns.
I became an anomaly out of luck. I need to repay the previous generation, and I also need to let the next generation leech off me.

Previously, I mentioned my wife wanted to travel to Africa, and someone in the comments asked why I didn't go with her.
I can't go; as the anomaly of the family, I have my responsibilities.
Also, it's not realistic for me to spend that money, because this anomaly might only last for my first thirty-odd years; I still don't know what awaits me in my forties.

Our generation is an anomaly.