SHENZHEN’S skyrocketing home prices have driven up rent, making some residents move into smaller apartments or out to suburban areas for a lower rent, according to sznews.com.

    “The monthly rent was 9,000 yuan (US$1,375) when I moved into this apartment in May 2014, but it soared to 14,000 yuan this month,” said Yu, a resident who rents a 120-square-meter apartment in Futian for his family. The apartment is located in a high-end estate with a school nearby.

    Yu bought an 80-square-meter apartment with three bedrooms in the same estate in March. “My family lived in an independent house when we lived abroad, and I never thought that I could only afford an 80-square-meter apartment in Shenzhen due to the skyrocketing home prices,” he said. Yu said he is considering moving to a larger rented apartment with his family and renting his new apartment to cover the rent.

    A South Korean surnamed Park, who has worked in Shekou for two years, is living in a 160-square-meter apartment with his family in Nanshan District, with a monthly rent of 17,000 yuan. His landlord wanted to raise the rent to 20,000 yuan recently. “I can’t put up with the climbing rent anymore,” Park said, adding that he plans to move to a smaller apartment for a lower rent.

    Chen, from a financial company, said she is looking for a new apartment.

    “I lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Jingtian, Futian District, in 2010 with a monthly rent of 1,500 yuan, but the rent was raised to 3,500 yuan in late 2015,” Chen said, adding that she may rent a flat with her friends in an urban village near her company.

    A realty agency employee, surnamed Liu, said rent in urban villages in Futian and Nanshan districts has climbed, and most one-bedroom apartments cost nearly 2,000 yuan per month.

    Most fresh graduates, who earn 3,500 to 5,000 yuan per month in Shenzhen, are burdened by monthly rent of up to 2,000 yuan, according to the report.

    Centaline Property’s statistics showed that Shenzhen’s average monthly rent was 45.3 yuan per square meter in 2010, but it grew to 66.6 yuan in May last year. The monthly rent in Futian and Nanshan districts is nearly 80 yuan per square meter, while a 40-square-meter flat costs over 3,200 yuan each month.

    While tenants suffer soaring rent prices, landlords are also complaining about a low return on renting out their apartments. A landlord surnamed Zhang bought a 70-square-meter apartment in Nanshan District last year with 4.1 million yuan, and he has to repay a bank loan of 15,000 yuan per month. He rented out the apartment, which he has furnished, for 6,500 yuan per month.

    “If I don’t raise the rent, it will be hard to pay back the loan every month,” Zhang said.

    (Zhang Yang)