What city are you in? You could very easily be describing where I am (Kunming) but I suppose it really applies to pretty much every city in China with >1mm residents.
I'm in Hangzhou, currently the most expensive city when it comes to housing, according to an article I read a few weeks ago. And it'll probably go further up, because there is a new bullet train and Shanghai is now only some 45 minutes away (down from about 2 hours).
(I may move to Kunming later this year, the weather so much better there :)
