As regulators grapple to keep a lid on soaring housing prices in big cities, some people sign up for the debt treadmill and others decide to just get on with life. Yang Yang reports.

A 2 million yuan millstone hangs around the necks of Wu Jian and his wife, and yet they consider themselves lucky. That amount, equivalent to $290,000, is how much Wu, 28, of Beijing, and his wife owe a bank and their relatives after they borrowed money to buy a 60-square-meter apartment in the city last winter.

If Wu and his wife were on an average salary in Beijing of a little less than 10,000 yuan and each contributed half their pay toward repayments, they would finally discharge their debt by about 2035. However, that calculation ignores any interest they have to pay, which could stretch their burden by quite a few more years.