Housing prices cast dark shadows on buyers and sellers. Photo: IC

By Tong Ting 
 
In the recent hit TV drama Dwelling Narrowness, the young protagonist lives frugally, sacrificing her love and even her moral standards to become the mistress of a rich old man in order to afford an apartment. With the way Beijing's housing market is going, this is only a slightly amplified reflection of the current reality. In fact, sky-high housing prices and the many problems they beget have affected some people so much that doctors have diagnosed them as clinically depressed.

Tang Jianyi, a psychiatrist from a Traditional Chinese Medicine clinic in Beijing, said housing problems are becoming a common cause of depression, anxiety and even schizophrenia. "There are all kinds of different stories," she said, relating the cases of two recent examples. The first was a patient who was cheated by both the buyer of her apartment and the middleman. "Her apartment cost over one million yuan. The buyer gave a 200,000 yuan deposit, and the intermediary, knowing both parties involved, persuaded her to transfer the name of the registration to the buyer before receiving the full amount, which the buyer never paid," Tang said. "800,000 yuan is not small money for anybody, least of all ordinary people." Tang explained that this is one of her more serious patients, now suffering from mental dissociation.

Tang's other patient is a young man who just purchased an apartment and was paying a monthly mortgage, but then lost his job. "He earned about 6,000 yuan before, but needed to pay 3,900 yuan per month for the mortgage. Since he doesn't have a job anymore, every day he wakes up to think about how he can actually get that 3,900 yuan and keep his apartment. And that's becoming a mental problem for him."

It's surprising to see how many people actually claim to be depressed over housing problems. Lifestyle did a simple survey on the popular online community site Kaixin (kaixin001. com). Out of 130 voters, 50 percent claim they are somewhat depressed over housing. Among the glum, 26 percent blame soaring housing prices, 24 percent are depressed that they don't currently own property, 8 percent are worried about monthly mortgages and 14 percent say they cannot get married due to housing issues. It appears the traditional Chinese value that owning a place to live means having a happy family is so strong that not only is it affecting skyrocketing property prices, but also the mental health of the general public.

Bian Tong, a 25-year-old banker at China Construction Bank, was on an apartment hunt for the past several months with her boyfriend, with no success. "We went to see an apartment building around the East Fourth Ring Road. The sales girl didn't even bother to look at us, and said that there's only one unit left, which was 36,000 yuan per square meter." Bian complained, "The other place we went was planning to sell 2,000 units. But there were over 10,000 people on the waiting list for the lottery."

Bian said the pressure of buying an apartment was so huge that they finally gave it up. "I can't say I'm suffering from depression, but I've definitely got some slight signs of anxiety, like I've started to hate those rich people who purchased several apartments and even paid big money to get an apartment lottery number. I'm also constantly mad and worried about the steeply rising prices."

Huang Yi, a management consultant at Deloitte, thinks the housing problem is affecting her other decisions too. "You need to consider materialistic things as the top priority even for finding a boyfriend, which is not right," she said. "Sometimes I feel so useless and helpless. I want to be independent and buy an apartment on my own, but if I want to own a place right now I have to depend on my parents."

Zhao Yuhua, a psychologist at Haiming Mental Health Counseling Center in Beijing, told Lifestyle that while a group of society is suffering varying degrees of depression or anxiety over housing matters, "Not everyone that cannot afford to buy a place is having those symptoms. The ones that do tend to be idealistic ones who have high expectations." She suggests that this group of people lower their buying expectations, talk to family members and close friends and find some interests or hobbies to release stress.

Zhao also explained that signs of more serious depression include obsessing over the belief that one is suffering and struggling with socializing. They should seek mental health counselors and may need to ease symptoms through medication, she said. It is also important for people to independently foster a healthy state of mind and not to jump on the blue bandwagon with other sufferers. Zhao suggests buying a small place or renting first, and then solving related issues with a positive mindset.