Investors rush to develop rental housing as China's home prices surge

Hong Kong

CHINA'S sky-high apartment prices and its footloose generation of millennials are fuelling demand for rental apartments, driving investment by foreign private equity funds and Chinese real estate developers.

The country has been very much a home-owner's market since opening up to the outside world in the 1980s and its home ownership ratio is now one of the highest in the world at about 90 per cent.

But that is beginning to change as home price gains far outpace income growth, making the prospects of buying a home an increasingly distant dream for many young Chinese. Newer generations of tech-savvy workers also want to be able to move quickly …