Some homebuyers, particularly young people, have to rely on their parents' financial help to cover the 30 to 35 percent deposit on a home. For some, using their parents' life savings to buy a home is similar to overdrawing a bank account. But Jin Yin, a 36-year-old music producer with China Central Television, said this tactic is risky.

"What if something happens to your parents?" she said. "They don't have money, and you don't have money either as your mortgage debt piles up the quality of life for both you and your parents deteriorates."

China's population boom and rapid urbanization, coupled with speculation, people buying up properties and forcing up housing prices, are major factors behind the lack of access to adequate housing, according to Liu Ming, a government institute sociologist.

The central government has pledged to stabilize housing prices by issuing an order to build more affordable small- and medium-sized houses, as well as strengthening land appreciation tax collection on developers, in a bid to ease urban housing woes.

According to official data, Beijing will build an extra 10 million square meters of low-cost affordable housing over the next three years.

Although the overall housing market has cooled, housing prices in some major cities are still rising. Prices in 70 large and medium cities rose by 6 percent last month over the same period last year, according to the State Development and Reform Commission. This compares to a rise of nearly 10 percent in Beijing.

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