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Mothers to blame for rising housing prices?

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-11 06:46

BEIJING: Want to marry your girlfriend in China? Better buy a house first.

Facing ever-rising housing prices in China, only 18 percent of mothers told a recent survey they were willing to let their daughters marry men who only rent their homes.

The survey, by Beijing-based 5i5j Real Estate Service, was conducted in response to the debate on whether mothers-in-law are contributing to the rise in housing prices across the country.

In China, mothers have a great influence on who their daughters marry. Usually, mothers prefer their daughters marry men who can afford a house before marriage.

Future mothers-in-law were more lenient about their daughters marrying renters in Beijing, where 27 percent would be willing to give the nod of approval to a man without an apartment. That number fell to 15 percent in Tianjin and only 12 percent in Shanghai.

However, some 76 percent of mothers-in-law in the country would "give a hand" when their sons-in-law buy their own homes.

"Our survey shows that quite a few would-be mothers-in-law in China are becoming flexible on the issue of their future sons-in-law buying homes," said Qin Rui, a senior analyst with the real estate service.

About 20 percent of mothers-in-law would accept having their sons-in-law live under the same roof, the survey showed.

The survey was conducted from Feb 23 to March 1, based on 2,000 questionnaires from 5i5j's website and its branches in eight cities in China: Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Nanjing, Taiyuan, Ningbo, Suzhou and Hangzhou.

Residential and commercial real-estate prices in 70 cities climbed 10.7 percent in February from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said on its website on Wednesday. That topped a 9.5 percent gain in January.

Premier Wen Jiabao on Friday reiterated the government's determination to curb the excessive growth of housing prices in major cities while satisfying people's basic needs for housing as the annual session of China's top legislature opened.

XINHUA AND CHINA DAILY