sqft

Both original houses were around 800 sqft, and eventually expanded to around 1600 sqft over the course of decades.

According to the US census bureau [0] the median new home constructed in the US is around 2100 sqft.

Regarding rents, the Shenzhen central business section rents are expensive now and cost/sqft comparable to anywhere else.

Obviously nobody wants to pay $500k - $1 million for a 1,000 sqft.

A lot of approval processes etc are based on $/sqft so obviously if real estate always goes up 10%/yr then you'll make much more money off a 4000 sq ft house than a 1600 sq ft house.

Houses that have sold on their block in the last few months were all around 800 sqft and went for an average of $95,000 -- which is an affordable 3.2 times the median income in the neighborhood (it's a poor neighborhood.) A single earner can provide a house, provided it's a house similar to what single earners could provide decades ago -- but there aren't many of those on the market.

However, good industrial space is still far cheaper, for example, I just leased an additional 12,000 sqft high quality assembly space with low ESD floors in a technical park along with 8 dorm rooms to sleep up to 32 people (4 per room - last owner had 8 per room).