Over the years, the government has tried to curb the price rise by imposing a series of conditions on purchase. But each time, after a short, slight dip, prices have rebounded with a vengeance, leaving the optimists cursing their gullibility and slow moves.

Property remains the best investment vehicle. While early homebuyers could laugh their way to the bank, the experience of most Chinese stock investors has long been one of frustration, anger, regret and shame.

Almost 70 percent respondents to a recent survey said they had lost more than 10 percent of their total investments in the domestic stock market, with 40 percent complaining that more than half of their investments had evaporated.

Furthermore, property is not just for the wealthy to park their funds in to get high returns. Many working people have painfully realized that a house could become their nesting egg after retirement, especially after the government has decided to try reverse mortgage which allows elderly people to borrow against the value of their home, possibly to supplement future pension deficits. It thus makes sense to go for costlier and better-located homes with easy access to amenities, even if that means one has to become a slave to mortgage for another 10 years or more.

So what about first-time buyers who dream of a place they can call home in Beijing or Shanghai or any other major city where they work and live? It's common for parents to dish out the down payment for apartments, assuming their children will pay for the mortgage for the rest of their working lives. In one extreme example of desperation, a software designer from a poor family tried to rob a bank in Beijing in April to foot the down payment of 310,000 yuan for an apartment that he had promised his girlfriend.

The housing bubble will eventually burst, which will indeed have a serious impact on the economy and millions of homeowners. But not yet.

The writer is editor-at-large of China Daily. dr.baiping@gmail.com

(China Daily 10/19/2013 page5)