(ECNS) - The cost to rent an entire one-bedroom house in Beijing, Shanghai or Shenzhen can account for up to 90 percent of the average income in China, according to a study by property search engine Zhuge.com.
In those same cities, rent costs drop to 30 percent of income if renters are willing to share a house with others, taking into consideration the per capita income data of urban residents in 2018, published by the National Bureau of Statistics.
The report showed that the rent-to-income ratio for renters is also high in tourist hotspots such as Sanya in Hainan Province and Xiamen in Fujian Province.
The rent-to-income ratio can be seen as an indicator of living stress in big cities. The higher the ratio is, and the more people have to spend on housing, the less disposable income they have.
When it comes to disposable income, the five cities in the Yangtze River Delta region - Ningbo, Wuxi, Changzhou, Wenzhou, Suzhou - took the top five places.
Hangzhou, Dalian, Chongqing and Harbin also ranked among the top cities with the highest rent-to-income ratios.
Wuxi and Changzhou, both cities in Jiangsu Province boasting robust economic development, stand out for having much more acceptable rent-to-income ratios, at approximately 35 percent for a one-bedroom house or 15 percent for a shared house.
