Kings and queens of rented castles

[Photo provided to China Daily]

About 10 years ago a Chinese television series called Woju, which refers to homes the size of a snail's shell, became hugely popular because it depicted the struggles families had to go through to buy a home in big Chinese cities.

Many young viewers reckoned the show accurately reflected real life, when people would scrimp and save for years only to realize they still did not have enough for a deposit on a home.

In Chinese culture owning a home has long connoted stability. Even though buying a home in first-tier cities usually means depleting family savings and having to pay huge mortgage loans for decades, many people still take the plunge.

In 2015 the average monthly salary in Shanghai was 5,939 yuan ($860), and a dual-income family would have needed to save every single penny for about 20 years to buy a 90-sq m apartment.