Rich young things snap up high-end property

Some 70 percent of expensive houses in Beijing are bought by young people born in the 1980s, reflecting a shift in purchasing power of high-end houses from the middle-aged to the younger generation, according to the latest real estate survey.

Among 101 high-end apartment blocks surveyed citywide, 70 percent of the buyers were born in the 1980s, mostly from 1980 to 84, while previously the majority of the expensive houses were bought by people in their 40s or 50s, according to LANDZ, a Beijing-based real estate research center.

"Most of the young home buyers work in industries such as finance, securities, high-technology and IT," said Zheng Haiyan, analyst with the center.

The young buyers are not the so-called "second generation rich" she said, as more than 40 percent of them purchased houses with their own money. Areas of the city, especially in Chaoyang district, like the CBD, Northeast Third Ring Road and Dongzhimen are the most popular.

"Housing restrictions in Beijing had a great impact on the high-end real estate market," Zheng noted. The restrictions, established in February last year, stipulate that a local family can only have two houses in the city, and non-locals can only buy one under certain conditions. The new rules resulted in a slump in property sales.

However, other real estate experts said the survey does not in reality reflect the high-end housing market.

"There aren't too many young people in their 80s buying expensive houses in Beijing," said Zhang Dawei, director of the marketing research department for Zhongyuan Real Estate.

The more probable scenario, said Zhang, would be parents using their own money to buy property in their child's name, since the younger generation is more likely to have the necessary documents to buy in the capital than their parents.