[JohnnyB]

I've often thought about buying property here in Shanghai, but it's much more difficult for young people here to do so. First payments on homes are 50%, meaning you need to have a lot of cash up front or you just can't get into the market. Making it worse for most people here, the average cost for property is something around 40,000Rmb/square meter and most people here don't make anything close to enough to afford that themselves. Even 10,000rmb/month is considered a pretty good salary for a lot of young people here. The result is basically that young people simply can't afford to buy property on their own and are entirely dependent upon their parents buying apartments for them.
It makes Shanghai a very difficult and high-pressure place to live for young people who aren't from families capable of taking care of them financially.