| Tenure Distribution | Owner occupancy | Private rental | Social rental | |
| China | 81% | 12% | 2% | |
| Shenzhen | - | 77% | - | |
| Affordability | House price to income ratio | Household rent to income ratio | Social rent to private rent ratio | |
| China | 34.6 | - | - | |
| Shenzhen | 40.1 | - | 30% | |
| Housing Stock | Avg dwelling size | Avg household size | % of housing built before 1980 | |
| China | - | 2.9 | - | |
| Shenzhen | - | 2.8 | - | |
| Housing Delivery | Target (2024) | Total supply (2022-23) | Affordable supply (2022-23) | |
| China | - | 100,717,000 | 7,986,000 | |
| Shenzhen | 65,000 | 14,500 | 4,500 |
Since the late 1990s, China has seen radical housing reforms, transitioning from enterprise-based housing to a market-driven system. State-owned enterprise housing was sold to workers, and the private sector began developing new for-profit housing. However, in response to an affordability crisis, China has introduced several subsidised housing programmes and is developing new housing at an unprecedented pace. Between 2011 and 2015, it built 40.13 million affordable units, a third of which were for rent. Despite this, only 3% of China’s current housing stock is affordable rental.
China is planning to build 6.5 million public rental housing units in 40 major cities in 2021-2025 as part of its 14th Five-Year Plan. The main affordable housing programmes are public rental housing (俖侺’赁饁萛); affordable rental housing (僋謘僛襌赁萛) and shared homeownership housing (侺膧产权饁萛). Each programme varies in scale, target groups, eligibility, funding , and regional focus. Eligibility criteria have recently expanded to include qualified migrant and newly employed workers.
While public rental housing is for low-income groups, affordable rental housing targets young and new urban residents on low- to mid-incomes, specifically so-called talent workers (嬣謢俖’). Affordable rental housing has no income or household registration (hukou) requirements and aim to attract highly skilled professionals to cities with high housing costs, particularly in sectors facing labour and skills shortages. In addition, a shared home ownership programme offers stepped ownership to those who cannot buy a home on the open market (typically 50% share).
While the central government outlines subsidised housing policies and targets, local governments in principle implement, manage, and fund them, often providing public land and capping developer profits to ensure affordability. Although land is, in principle, state-owned and therefore easier to allocate to affordable housing provisions, they have also been a major source of income through leases to private developers.
China’s housing stock is very new, with only 3% built before 1978, 87% since 1990, and 60% since 2000. Urban housing is typically made up of flats and rural homes of house.
Affordable housing design in China is largely governed by standards set by the central government and standards and guidelines published by regional housing offices. The design standard of public rental housing, includes a minimum and maximum area for different housing types and minimum sizes for living rooms and bedrooms. However, the standards also come with a series of standard dwelling plans, which are often directly implemented and repeated.