Miss Lin, a 27-year-old civil servant in Shanghai, has bought a 100-sq-m flat worth 700,000 yuan (US$84,337) with bank loans.

Feeling financially independent, the home purchase had made her more contented in her daily life and more confident about her future, she told a recent survey conducted by Shanghai Fortunite Market Consulting Company, a leading real estate market researcher in the metropolis.

Lin was only one of the 12,000 women who bought homes in the city in the 2001-2003 period, according to the survey. They bought over 15 million square meters of apartments in each of the past two years, the survey found.

Among home buyers in Shanghai, the ratio between male and female was 58:42 at the end of February this year, compared with the 65:35 ratio in 2001, the survey says. Growth in the share of women home buyers is attributed by researchers with the company to the fact that more and more young ladies in the city earned more over the past two years.

And over 80 percent of the women bought flats for their own use, with the remaining more than 10 percent for investment purpose.

A lot of women home buyers are young and well educated. According to the survey, 33 percent of the investigated are under the age of 29 and 49 percent have a college education.

In comparison with the women who have not yet bought their own housing, the home buyers investigated were more self-confident and optimistic about their work and development prospects, the survey discovers.

Last year 23.76 million square meters of flats and villas were sold in Shanghai, an increase of 20.5 percent over the previous year.
 
(Xinhua News Agency March 13, 2004)