A national survey showed that 60 percent of respondents believe that owning an apartment can lead to a happier life, but one in five do not have any property yet.

The four Chinese cities with the highest GDP - Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen - are the bottom four in a ranking of 40 major cities in the country based on the property-ownership rate, according to the survey conducted by the Real Estate Investment Research Center of Zhejiang University, the Tsinghua Media Survey Lab and China Xiaokang magazine.

According to the survey, which had over 10,000 respondents, Changsha - the capital city of Central China's Hunan province - has the highest home-ownership rate. More than 90 percent of residents there own at least one apartment, while Shanghai has the lowest rate, at about 68 percent.

The survey showed that the more affluent cities do not have a high home-ownership rate, due to high property prices and policies restraining property purchase.

More than 64 percent of the interviewees said they would rather live in second-tier cities instead of cities such as Beijing and Shanghai.