The between-jobs quarter
China overbuilt by 762 million m², and rents have fallen for a year straight. We turn that surplus into a 90-day reset: your entire quarter — visa, apartment, every headache — prepaid at a fixed cost lower than staying home. Job-hunt from a place where your burn rate can't run away from you, and come back with a sabbatical story instead of a gap.
The arbitrage
$9,000+
$5,600–6,100
Cost basis: Numbeo mid-2026; national rent index falling 11+ consecutive months (Caixin).
The bases
The real arbitrage is district-level: half-empty new-town complexes with slashed rents — and existing metro lines. Ghost-city pricing, real-city infrastructure. We skip the true ghost cities; cheap that fails the livability test isn't cheap.
The flagship. Eternal-spring climate on ghost-market rents.
| 1BR center | ¥1,600 (~$225) |
|---|---|
| 1BR outside | ¥1,200 (~$170) |
| Monthly, ex-rent | ~$540 |
Why it's cheap: Worst-performing large housing market in China — prices down 6.9% y/y; new supply exceeded household growth by 10–30%.
Climate: Year-round 15–25°C. The best weather of any major Chinese city.
Visa reset: Direct rail to Laos; short flights to Vietnam and Thailand.
Mega-city amenities at oversupply prices.
| 1BR center | ¥2,940 (~$410) |
|---|---|
| 1BR outside | ¥1,250 (~$175) |
| Monthly, ex-rent | ~$481 |
Why it's cheap: Decades of enormous land releases left a deep, chronic surplus — especially in new-town districts with metro access.
Climate: Mild winters, furnace summers. Best as a fall or spring base.
Visa reset: Major hub airport; cheap flights to Hong Kong for resets.
Lowest home-price-to-income ratio of any major Chinese city.
| 1BR center | ~¥2,000 (~$280) |
|---|---|
| 1BR outside | ~¥1,300 (~$180) |
| Monthly, ex-rent | ~$500 |
Why it's cheap: Deliberately loose land-supply policy keeps housing famously cheap; supply exceeded demand by 10–30%.
Climate: Four seasons; hot summers, chilly damp winters.
Visa reset: High-speed rail to Hong Kong West Kowloon (~3h).
Mild winters and the cheapest visa resets in the country.
| 1BR center | ~¥1,500 (~$210) |
|---|---|
| 1BR outside | ~¥1,000 (~$140) |
| Monthly, ex-rent | ~$460 |
Why it's cheap: New supply exceeded household growth by 10–30%.
Climate: Subtropical — mild winters, humid summers.
Visa reset: 3–4 hours overland to the Vietnam border. Cheapest reset anywhere.
The deepest discounts in China — May through October only.
| 1BR center | ~¥1,400 (~$195) |
|---|---|
| 1BR outside | ~¥900 (~$125) |
| Monthly, ex-rent | ~$450 |
Why it's cheap: Deepest oversupply tier: new supply exceeded household growth by 30%+, compounded by population decline.
Climate: Glorious summers. Winters reach −25°C — this is a seasonal play.
Visa reset: Flights to Seoul or Hong Kong for resets.
All headaches considered
Budget autopilot
Most of our customers aren't disciplined budgeters. Good — the environment does it for them. We don't teach you discipline; we remove the need for it.
The standard Chinese lease (押一付三) prepays your entire stay's rent on day one. The single biggest budget-killer is structurally impossible to overspend.
Virtually every transaction flows through Alipay or WeChat Pay, so you generate a perfect spending ledger automatically. We turn it into a weekly burn-rate report — no receipts, no spreadsheets.
Opt into a daily allowance loaded as Alipay top-ups. When the day's budget is spent, it's spent — and at Kunming prices, the budget is generous anyway.
Prototype pricing
$490 one-time
Everything you need to decide, and land, on your own.
$1,900 per 90-day cycle
The all-headaches-considered package. Built for the between-jobs quarter: you show up, it works, your burn rate can't run away.
$3,500 one-time
Stop cycling. Convert to a legal work status.
Where this goes next
China is the flagship — the deepest arbitrage and the best story. But the product is the honest reset quarter, not one country. Three more bases are in the pipeline, each solving a constraint China can't.
Each base opens only after we've run its full playbook ourselves — same rule as China. Nothing here is bookable yet.
The honest part
Working remotely on a tourist visa is prohibited under Chinese law — even for a US employer, even paid into a US account. Enforcement has historically been near-zero, but the risk is asymmetric and we won't pretend otherwise. The US State Department advisory also notes arbitrary law enforcement and exit bans; rare for ordinary visitors, real enough to say out loud.
If you want to work legally, there are two genuine routes — including one that launched in October 2025 that almost nobody knows about. Read the four lanes →