**1. Introduction**

Since China's reform and opening up in 1978, the country's high-speed process of marketization has resulted in unprecedented advancements. Additionally, concerns, such as imbalanced and insufficient developments, ensued, with social inequality becoming the most serious issue. In the early 1980s, China and other Eastern European socialist countries were the most equal countries in the world. Then, the Gini coefficient in China was less than 0.3, which was lower than that of developed countries and other developing countries [1]. Despite official statistics indicating a drop in the Gini coefficient in China during these years—0.49 in 2008 to 0.46 in 2015 [2]—the nation has undeniably transformed from one of the most equal countries in the world into one of the world's most unequal countries over the last 40 years. This transition has exerted a profound influence on every stratum of society, and housing inequality is the most remarkable problem.

Several issues account for this phenomenon of inequality, one of which is the commodification of housing. The homeownership rate of Chinese urban residents increased from 15% in 1995 to 80% in 2002, and the latter number was even higher than the figure for the United States in 2003, which was 68% [3,4]. Thus, a real-estate market emerged from the old system of socialist redistribution.

Residents have gone from a period marked by "houses allocated by work units" to a period characterized by "buying houses on their own" within a generation. The old institutional arrangements and the force of marketization are intertwined, forming a medley of houses with different historical origins on the market. Additionally, the housing allocation circumstances of society and the complex arrangements in economics and society are intertwined, resulting in housing inequality.

Notably, housing prices are rapidly increasing, and two aspects account for this trend. First, many people in China leave their hometowns to seek employment in big cities. As a result, there is considerable demand for housing in these cities. Second, under circumstances marked by inflation and a sluggish manufacturing industry, housing hash has become the fastest-growing value-added asset of Chinese families. The average profitability rates of first-, second-, and third-owned urban residences are 340.31%, 143.25%, and 96.70%, respectively [5]. Therefore, housing inequality is more than a matter of social resource distribution, such as income inequality. The accompanying high profitability is more likely to become an institutionalized source of rent-seeking. Individuals who invest early tend to receive a substantial amount of added value through real-estate appreciation and residential rental properties, creating even wider inequality. This will probably lead to a more rigorous problem—the Matthew Effect. The Matthew Effect means that any individual, group, or region that achieves success and progress in a certain aspect (such as money, reputation, status, etc.) will produce an accumulated advantage and have more opportunities to achieve greater success and progress [6]. What are the characteristics of housing inequality? Which stratum of society owns high-value properties? Who can benefit from the property market? All of these questions must be studied and solved in greater detail.
