Consider this true story: Four friends used to travel to the outskirts of Beijing almost every weekend to enjoy the relaxing countryside, the fresh air and a barbecue meal on a quaint riverbank. That was their way of overcoming the stress of five days of tiring office work. But of late, one of the friends, Zhou Xin, has dropped out of the trips even though he seemed to enjoy them the most.

The reason: he has bought an apartment and has to save every farthing to pay the monthly installments for his housing loan.

It's not that Zhou does not earn enough. In fact, he earns 10,000 yuan ($1,633) a month, almost double the average salary of 5,223 yuan in Beijing. But then he has to shell out more than 2.5 million yuan for the 36-square-meter space in order to call it home.