China’s youth-targeted rental apartments on the rise

It’s like getting a job: the basic requirements are under 35, single, no children. You fill out a questionnaire about your hobbies and dreams. Then you wait for an interview. If you fail it, you won’t be able to move in.

That’s how a growing number of young Chinese adults, mostly born after 1985, rent apartments for three months or more nowadays. Unlike their parents, they are not in a rush to buy a house. Nor can they bear to live in tiny, filthy flats packed with unfamiliar friends of roommates. They prefer temporary “homes” that reflect their taste in design, make it easier to socialise and, most important of all, never bore them.

The youth-targeted rental apartment is the latest trend in a leasing market estimated to be worth 800 billion yuan a year and increasing at an annual rate of 60 billion yuan, as young university graduates enter the job market in first-tier cities like Guangzhou, according to a report from Hua Chuang Securities.

Last month, Yuan Hongfan, 30, decided to move out of his single studio in northern Guangzhou, even when though his lease hadn’t expired. He forfeited his deposit and moved into WOWQU, a long-term-lease apartment building targeting “interesting young people” in suburban Guangzhou.

Opened in September, the eight-storey building has a 300 square metre lobby and facilities including a gym, pool table and gaming room. Its 147 flats range from 18 square metre Japanese tatami style to Yuan’s two-floor loft.

“This place feels a bit like college dorm. It never bores me,” he said. “If you live in ordinary apartments, you probably never get to know your neighbours … but here, you can drop by the flats of other [tenants] make food together, and play together in the lobby.”