High costs make owning home an impossibility

Twenty-eight-year-old Zhu Yi'an has been single for a long time but has no plans to tie the knot anytime soon - at least until he can afford the down payment on an apartment in Shanghai.

He's not aiming at an extravagant, 1,000 square meter villa. On the contrary, his target is simply a secondhand apartment on the "outer ring" of Shanghai, an area where longtime residents like his parents would not have thought of living.

But the city's sky-high housing prices may be forcing Zhu to postpone his life plans and distance him from friends and relatives.

And even that secondhand apartment on the outskirts of Shanghai could cost him as much as 3 million yuan ($492,000).

That puts the down payment at about 1 million yuan - an astronomical amount that would exhaust 20 years of savings, based on Zhu's current income.

A truism often heard is that the high cost of housing in China is driven by demanding potential mothers-in-law who require an apartment as a precondition to marrying off their daughters. For Zhu, this is a reality he has to face.

"One has to have a substantial house before one starts a family. People of my age are no longer teenagers in school," he said.

"I have to provide basic living conditions for my wife. For the time being, I am not financially qualified to give such a promise."

There are other options for Zhu. Going to a more remote part of Shanghai is one choice. That would not only force him to make a two-hour trip to the downtown area: he would still have to ask his parents for financial help. That would clean out their bank account, which is the last thing Zhu wants to see.

"My parents need that money to provide for their retirement," he said.

Zhu also could follow the example of several friends by asking his folks to move to the outer part of the city while he and his wife move to his parents' apartment. But Zhu doesn't like this solution, either. It would cause too much trouble for his parents.

"My mom still goes to the university for the elderly these days. She would spend almost four hours every day going to and fro if she lived on the outskirts of the city," he said.

Therefore, call it independence or filial piety, but Zhu refuses to ask his parents for help.

It is a trend that began when he pursued his university degree in Singapore, where he received a full scholarship that covered all his expenses.

Now running his own small company specializing in graphic art, website and brand image design, Zhu hopes to be able to afford that down payment soon.

It's an opportunity he missed out on in Singapore in 2004, when housing prices were relatively low, which he now regrets.

"I was not sure whether to stay in Singapore or to come back at that time," Zhu said.

"But the pressure gets worse every year. And life cannot be planned. My only wish now is not to get married in haste. Otherwise, I will have to pay a mortgage for about 30 years, by which time I will start to worry about the down payment on my son's new apartment," he said.