TENANTS ON MOVE AS RENTS SOAR IN BEIJING

Real estate agencies shift focus from selling to leasing

Cao Yaomin, 27, a clerk in Beijing, is thinking of buying an apartment next year after being faced with a rent increase of about 20 percent early this month and having no choice but to accept it.

He lives in a 60-square-meter apartment on the 2nd West Ring Road in Xicheng district. The rent was 4,700 yuan ($688) when he moved in last year after finding the apartment through the Century 21 China real estate agency.