I live a stone’s-throw away from apartments that cost more than US$1 million each. Indeed, most of the apartments in my compound cost a substantial portion of that price, depending more on their size and proximity to a relatively small lake than to anything put down to common sense. A British friend suggested to me a couple weeks ago that from an investment point of view it doesn’t make sense to buy an apartment in China: prices have inflated incredibly in the Greater Shanghai area and there seems to be no baseline as to what the correct pricing levels should be, except what the real estate development markets tell people and what people believe. There are no bellweathers in China.

Prices for flats in larger cities in China have become so expensive that couples that want to marry can afford to buy them before they marry. Given the average marriage age in the mid- to late-twenties, scraping together the cash for a half-million dollar flat – even with a mortgage – is becoming increasingly difficult to do. Not even the combined savings of families on both sides of the aisle are able to buy something affordable, speculation in the real estate market has become so rife.

“Naked” marriages are the latest answer couples have found to meet the requirement of buying a nest to feather: marrying without the apartment, without the expensive ring, without even a wedding banquet (which sounds downright un-Chinese to me). Half-naked marriages will at least net the girl a ring, but likely no flat and no wedding banquet.

Many young Chinese women, though, still hold out for the guy with the flat and the car. That’s what they call security in a marriage. What’s love got to do with it, anyway?

Further reading: China Daily

See also:

“Straying Cows” Still Unable to Meet Bachelor Demands

Divorce, Chinese Style