Residents in Yichang city of central China's Hubei province came to a marketing center to purchase apartments on Oct 19, 2013. [Liu Junfeng /for china daily]

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.

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