IT man regrets hasty purchase

Frustration haunts Li Yan, 26, a computer engineer who plans to get married in October, for rushing into the purchase of a flat at a time when housing prices seem to have hit their limit.

"Both my fiance's family and my own spent all our bank savings to cover the down payment," he said. "It's really hard to accept that we might just have entered at the highest price point."

Li said he was pushed into his decision by a Chinese custom that a newly married couple should own their apartment. He began his "torturing" housing purchasing in October last year, eventually buying a 93-sq-m apartment priced at 22,000 yuan per sq m on April 12, shortly after the central government released which policies to control the market on March 15.