Rent Control

She brought her father from his home in Hubei Province to Shenzhen to take care of him, but found her tiny apartment, only 40 square meters, could not accommodate his needs. 　

Despite telling agents she intended to live with him, they refused to help. “We can’t monitor whether you truly live with your father, and what if your father has an accident or turns it into a ‘haunted house,’” Sun said one of the agents told her. A “haunted house” is a belief that it is unlucky to live in a house where someone died of an accident. The agent said they do not normally rent to anyone over 65 or those with serious ailments. 　

According to the Fifth Sample Survey on the Living Condition of China’s Urban and Rural Older Persons released by the China National Committee on Aging in 2024, by 2021, nearly 30 percent of China’s elderly population do not own their own home, nearly 20 percent live in rented accommodation and 14.2 percent live alone. 　

Interviewed experts told NewsChina that the gap between supply and demand for senior housing is widening as the population ages. As more seniors move to large cities, the rental market lacks suitable options even if landlords are willing to rent to them. 

“You have seniors who want to live with their children who already moved to those cities, while the early wave of [rural-urban] migrants are getting old too. Baby boomers from the 1960s are reaching retirement age. Plus many seniors don’t want to live with their kids or already live alone, and there are also families where everyone is aging, so there’s really no surprise that rental demand from seniors far outstrips the supply of suitable properties,” he told NewsChina. 

Chen Min’s mother is one of the seniors who moved to the big city to be close to her family. When her father passed away in Baoding, Hebei Province, Chen, 36, invited her mother to come to Beijing. But her two-bedroom apartment, already accommodating Chen, her husband and two children, proved too small for ffve people. Chen’s husband was forced to sleep on the couch. 　

Chen decided to rent an apartment for her mother, but after she picked out five potential places advertised on a leading rental platform, the agent claimed they were all already rented. 　

She found another agent, who told her that all landlords he knows refuse to rent to tenants over 60 or 65, no matter who was paying. “If you pay three times the security deposit, some homeowners might be willing to talk with you,” Chen said the agent told her. 　

Over the next three days, Chen was refused by five agents and 18 property owners due to her mother’s age. One agent told her his platform will automatically flag customers over 65 as “high risk” and would rarely recommend properties to them. 　

Chen tried to contact landlords directly. In March, she viewed an older apartment where the landlord seemed amenable, until she said her mother is in good health except for high blood pressure. The owner swiftly changed his attitude, telling Chen he had to reconsider. 　

Later, the landlord asked Chen to prepay half a year’s rent and sign a disclaimer, but she refused, considering it age discrimination. Finally, after three months of searching, she found an apartment through a colleague. 　

NewsChina, pretending to be a tenant, contacted several leading property agents, including Lianjia, Anjuke and Wo Ai Wo Jia (I Love My Home), and asked about age discrimination. All denied it, claiming they neither define seniors as high risk nor have age discrimination clauses written into rental contracts. 　

Interviewees working in the rental sector said that age discrimination is often implicit. “It’s fine for seniors to view a property for rent, but it would be better if younger people actually come to sign the contract [on their behalf,]” He Xun, an agent who works with Anjuke, told NewsChina. “In many cases, we have to hide the fact that seniors are living in their property, otherwise few owners will rent apartments to them,” He said. 　

“Many owners would rather rent an apartment to a family with a pregnant woman, a baby or a pet than to a senior,” he said, “and if they find a senior living in their place, they’d rather pay double the penalty for breach of contract than continue to rent to them.” 　

Some landlords directly ask an elderly tenant to move to a nursing home, according to He. 　

Sun Ling in Shenzhen considered moving her dad into a nursing home, but the cost was too much. In a second-tier city, a place in an ordinary nursing home costs on average 3,000-4,000 yuan (US$429-US$571) a month, and more than 5,000 yuan (US$714) for a good one. If a senior needs more care, the fees are higher. 　

“There are highly rated communities targeting elderly people in Shenzhen, equipped with complete facilities, but they cost over 10,000 yuan (US$1,429) each month at least. It’s beyond my monthly wage,” Sun said. 　

The above-mentioned 2024 survey by the China National Committee on Aging showed that only 7.7 percent of Chinese seniors live in a nursing home, and 87.3 percent still live in a home. Among seniors who would be willing to live in a nursing home, nearly 85 percent can only afford less than 3,000 yuan (US$429) a month. 　

“A nursing home is not the top choice because many seniors aren’t disabled and can look after themselves, and more importantly, they care about the cost. People who move to cities who want to rent a property usually have lower incomes than permanent residents,” Huang said. “Not being able to afford the cost of a nursing home is naturally a feature of the senior migrant population,” he added. 　

Although many local governments offer affordable apartments for rent, they are few in number and mostly target those in economic difficulties or people who are disabled or cannot care for themselves. 　

“The issue of seniors finding it hard to rent housing has been going on for years,” Huang said. “Lack of age-friendly apartments and landlords, and agents’ concerns about the risks, have existed for a long time. The rapidly aging society has further aggravated the supply-demand gap,” he added. 　

The World Health Organization describes age-friendly housing as being affordable, well-designed and safe, including features such as elevators and wide passages for wheelchairs. 

“One senior tenant who had heart disease said the electric water heater and the washing machine didn’t work, but in fact she didn’t know how to use them properly. She often forgot to turn off the gas hob, and even couldn’t use the new electric lock,” Hu said. “She asked me to change the lock twice in six months.” 　

Despite the contract stating that the tenant had to pay for broken appliances, Hu claimed his senior tenant refused to pay up. When he refused to change the lock for the third time, he claimed his tenant threatened she would have to go to hospital for her heart disease and Hu would have to pay her medical expenses. 　

“I can’t afford to offend her. Every day, I worry she might die in my apartment,” Hu said. 　

Some other elderly tenants troubled Hu with their bad habits. Visiting one of his properties, Hu was alarmed to find used plastic bottles and polystyrene trash piled high in the kitchen. Many seniors supplement their pensions by collecting and selling recyclables, often dumpster diving from community and street trash bins. Hu was forced to deep-clean the apartment to get rid of the smell, which cost 1,500 yuan (US$214). 　

“But the monthly rent was less than 1,500 yuan,” he said. 　

Most landlords care more about safety risks than ability to pay rent, according to agents, especially as tenants usually pay deposits and rent up front. 　

“It’s more likely that a senior could make a mistake when they are using an electrical appliance, so landlords naturally don’t want to rent their apartments to them,” Hu said. 　

Wang Yu, director of the Aging-Friendly Construction Lab under the China Architecture Design Research Group, who also advises China’s housing ministry, believes that the lack of age-friendly housing has increased the risks of renting to the elderly. “Falling is the most common accident in families with elderly people and the injuries may be fatal,” she said. “But it does not conform to market logic that we ask landlords to bear the cost of making age-friendly remodels and then rent them to the elderly.” 

“Renting an apartment is a market-driven activity, and since no law clearly forbids age discrimination, landlords may often refuse elderly tenants in the name of transaction freedom,” a law professor from a leading university in Beijing who refused to reveal his name told NewsChina. The prevailing Chinese law on protecting elderly people’s rights and interests has not yet detailed rules for renting, the professor added. 　

Huang Shisong points out that current standard rental agreements do not contain specific clauses about liabilities and disputes between a landlord and an elderly tenant, and the government’s model lease template does not contain relevant content. 　

“It’s hard to make it compulsory that landlords can’t refuse elderly tenants... since a rule will not be effectively implemented until each involved party is impelled to abide by it and they share the liabilities and risks together,” he said. “If the law can’t mitigate the fixed risks of renting an apartment to seniors and there is no good insurance or other institutions to share the risks, the market has no drive to implement rules [about forbidding age discrimination],” he added. 　

Huang said that unlike many other countries, which already have comprehensive insurance policies for landlords and tenants, policies offered by Chinese insurance companies are not very detailed, with some limiting coverage to tenants from 16 to 65. And many landlords and tenants do not know about this type of insurance, or would hesitate to spend extra money on it. 　

“Age-friendly insurance for rental properties in China is still in its infancy,” the law professor said. “We could encourage landlords and agencies to learn about it and work out standards according to the condition of older tenants,” he said. “It will help reduce landlord risks by asking elderly tenants or their families to provide economic security. The government may guide social forces to establish rental platforms aimed at the senior population that provide age-friendly apartments,” he added. 　

Huang agrees, stressing that an ageing-friendly rental market should be based on efforts from multiple channels. One approach is to remodel older apartments to better accommodate seniors and provide more affordable housing for the elderly. 　

“The issue is that our housing institutions are not keeping up with our aging society,” Huang said. “Current housing designs, community planning and rental institutions were all established based on a young population and now are not well prepared for the aging population,” he added. 　

The law professor agrees more government intervention is needed. “It’s not practical to wholly depend on the market to self-regulate itself [on age discrimination]. Instead, we need communities and local governments to make efforts in providing age-friendly houses,” he added.