BEIJING - The limited-price house program has found revived interest among young people who want to settle down in cities, especially in the cities where property prices skyrocketed in recent years.

The houses, which have a limited area and lower sales price than on the commercial market, are intended to help low- and medium-income families solve urban housing difficulties.

In the past, some buyers rejected limited-price apartments because most were built far from downtown areas, even on city outskirts, which would increase the residents' expenses.

However, these houses have now become a good choice for many young people who are unable to afford commercial property prices.

Han Juan, a 29-year-old Beijing resident, has given up her job to be eligible for a limited-price house.

"To work or to buy a house - the two seem unrelated but now I have to choose between them," she said.

Han got married in 2009 and lived with her husband in a 50-square-meter rental home in the Chaoyang district that cost 3,500 yuan ($550) a month.

Her desire to live in her own house grew stronger this year when she began planning to become a mother. "I should give the baby a stable life."

Han said she and her husband had about 200,000 yuan in savings and an average annual income of nearly 100,000 yuan. "For us, it would only be practical to buy limited-price house," she said.

But her plan fell through when she found that they were unqualified for the houses because their income exceeded the limit of 88,000 yuan a year set by the municipal government.

"My husband works for a State-owned enterprise and is expected to have a bright future. So I decided to give up my job," she said.

Han began to stay at home in October.

"My salary was about 3,500 yuan a month when I worked in a small community hospital. Although I will lose some money, it will be worth it when one day we can buy a limited-price house," she said.

Han's family is now among the thousands of applicants for these houses, which are made available to eligible buyers through a lottery system.

Dou Yi, a 28-year-old magazine editor in Beijing, said that he's marrying much earlier than expected because of housing issue.

"My girlfriend will have a three-year study for a doctor's degree starting from this year and no salary at all. So we will be qualified to apply for a limited-price house as a family since our total annual income, which is actually just my salary, is only about 70,000 yuan now," he said.

China launched a large-scale campaign to build 10 million affordable houses this year, nearly 2 million of which are limited-price houses, according to the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

"People who quit or change their jobs or in other ways change their daily lives to get a limited-price house are very likely to face risks in the future. For instance, they may have to survive on the low-incomes for a long time before they get lucky in the lottery system," said Li Chang'an, a public-policy professor at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing.

Li said the country currently has too many kinds of affordable housing with different rules of eligibility, which can easily cause discrepancies and inequities in the distribution and management of the houses.

"Many foreign countries, such as the US and Singapore, now provide public-rental houses only for low-income residents, which China should use as a reference in the future," he said.