No house, no spouse, says China's 'me' generation

Beijing's cooling property market is having an unintended side effect - ruining young couple's romantic dreams, and is even being blamed by some for a dateless Valentine's Day.

Couples are breaking up over the lack of material possessions, in particular apartments. Regulations the government unveiled a year ago aimed at slowing down the overheated property market have contributed to an 80 percent fall in sales to non-locals. There are more empty properties available, but the average price is still high, especially within the Fourth Ring Road, according to statistics from real estate agencies.

5i5j Real Estate Service Company in Beijing said yesterday that over 87 percent of the purchasers from February 2011 to now are Beijingers, a 25 percent increase over the year before the regulations were enforced. Only 6,500 apartments were purchased through 5i5j by people without a Beijing hukou (household registration), an 80 percent decrease.

Beijing enacted a number of regulations on February 16, 2011 to deter real estate speculation, which included forbidding non-Beijing residents who cannot provide five years of tax documentation from buying property in the city.

But being unable to buy a property may also sound the death knell for budding relationships, according to a survey by Sina.com last Thursday.

The survey asked for young people's opinions towards "marriage and property," and 51 percent of 22,407 Web users from major cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu believe "having no house and economic foundation" will be fully responsible for their spouse-less Valentine's Day in 2012.

Over 44 percent of those surveyed think people should own their first property when aged between 27 and 30.

Zheng Xin, a 28-year-old woman from Hebei Province recently married husband Wang Qianpeng, who has a Beijing hukou, and is therefore entitled to buy a property in the city.

"I love him and everything, but probably wouldn't have rushed into getting married if he didn't have the means and wasn't qualified to purchase a property here," said Zheng.

However, Wang still thinks now is not the right time to buy, as property prices have not decreased enough yet.

"The regulations just kept the prices from going even higher, but the average price of new property within the Fifth Ring Road is still over 20,000 yuan (US$3,176) per square meter, which is still unaffordable for a lot of people," said Wang.

Zhou Xiaopeng, a marriage consultant with dating site baihe.com said about 70 percent of break-ups she handled have resulted in some way from disputes over the "property issue."

"As our society stopped providing houses through the welfare system, the ability to purchase a house proves a person's capability to survive in big cities, which accordingly gives a sense of security to a relationship," said Zhou.

"Our culture emphasizes that we Chinese couldn't accept a married couple renting a home that belongs to someone else," noted Zhou.

Some Chinese parents also believe in the security a house could bring to a marriage when a man asks for their daughter's hand.

A 26-year-old female public relations employee, surnamed Zhang, wanted to discuss getting married last year, but her out-of-town boyfriend is scared they might break up over his inability to buy a house.

"He's very afraid that I won't wait for another couple of years for the tax documentation, especially after hearing his male colleagues talking about being dumped for that reason," said Zhang, "as a matter of fact, my parents did mention their concerns over this issue."

Feng Lianlian, director of the market research department at real estate company Homelink Beijing, said currently there are 119,921 built but empty apartments on their books, a growth of 54 percent over 2010.

"We don't see that the macro control polices are going to be changed soon, so I think sales probably will stay low with all the requirements [to purchase property] attached," said Feng Lianlian.

"Accordingly, out-of-towners who can't provide the required documents to purchase a house or a car in Beijing may still be seen as 'second class citizens' on some matters," said Feng.