Skyrocketing housing prices and business plans are keeping graduates away from the real estate market. Photo: Li Hao/GT

Unlike her older friends who went out of their way to purchase a home in Beijing, Xing Yashu, 22, decided not to rush into buying a home and carry a heavy mortgage.

"Even though, with my level of income, I can buy an apartment with a mortgage from the bank, I still won't buy one now because that will severely lower my quality of life," said Xing, who owns an e-commerce clothing store on both Taobao, China's largest online shopping platform, and the WeChat messaging app.

Xing's philosophy is one shared by potential home buyers born in the 1990s all over China. The Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences published research in December 2014, led by research fellow Tian Feng, which showed that among the 4,110 respondents born in the 1990s, (1,380 of them had graduated from university and 2,730 of them were university students), 55 percent said they weren't planning to buy an apartment anytime soon.

Tian said the main factor keeping this generation away from real estate is the skyrocketing housing prices in China's first-tier cities. Beijing's average housing price was $2,339 per square meter that month, yet the average salary for university graduates was only $523 per month, according to a report published in December 2014 in the Economic Information Daily.

However, housing prices aren't the only thing turning people away. In Tian's research, more than half of the respondents said that if they were given money, they would use it to start up a business or travel instead of buying an apartment.

"With the post-90s generation attaching more importance on quality of life, some abandoned the idea of buying a home because it would sacrifice their quality of life," Tian said.

Chinese born in the post-90s generation are more likely to start their own businesses than those in older generations. About 80 percent of the post-90s are interested in starting their own business, and 60 percent already have solid plans, according to an article by news portal youth.cn this month. Only 50 percent of people from the post-80s generation reported having start-up business plans, according to the Beijing News.

Xing currently earns 20,000 yuan ($3,212) to 50,000 yuan per month, much higher than the average income for people her age. She decided to use the money to implement her business expansion plan to open a showroom.

"It's more important for me to improve myself and realize my dream now," Xing said.

Other reasons behind not purchasing homes include the fact that many Chinese born in the 1990s were the only child in their families, so they would be able to inherit their family home. They also tend to have a diversified view toward marriage and family with some of them preferring to marry later in life or not marry at all, Tian said.

Research by real estate agency Home Link revealed that less than 3 percent of their clients purchasing homes were born in the 1990s, while more than 75 percent were born in the 1980s. 

"The eldest of that generation are only 25 years old now, and, even though they don't feel it's urgent to purchase a home themselves, their parents will likely purchase one for them," said Zhang Xu, chief property analyst at Home Link.

Metropolitan entrusted two students from Wuhu Institute of Technology from Anhui Province and Shenyang Jianzhu University from Liaoning Province to conduct a survey through WeChat's Moments platform. Among the 120 respondents born in the 1990s, 80 percent of them said that when it's eventually time to start a family, they will need to buy an apartment for a sense of stability.

Yang Lihui, who works at a hospital in Beijing, bought an apartment for her son, who was born in 1990 and is still in college.

"My husband and I didn't have an apartment when we were young," Yang said. "We moved from place to place. I couldn't let my son suffer from that. With his income right out of college, he won't be able to buy one in 10 or even 20 years, but he has to have a place to start his own life and family."