Investors smarting from this week's two-day stock market dive are choosing to put home-buying plans on hold.

After the plunge, 39-year-old clothing designer Wu Xiaopeng said he regretted putting most of his savings into stocks.

Wu earns around 100,000 yuan a year and wants to upgrade to a bigger apartment. "I didn't find a suitable apartment last year. But most of my friends had been earning a lot by investing in stocks," said Wu.

This convinced Wu to divert around 700,000 yuan of his savings into the stock market at the beginning of the year. "I have already lost 200,000 yuan this week, so I've had to put my apartment plan on hold," said Wu.

Liu Jun, a 31-year-old fitness trainer, had a similar experience. Liu said he had postponed his plan to buy an apartment because his capital is tied up in the stock market.

"The stock market and real estate are closely related. A falling stock market also has a negative impact on real estate," said Lee Hingyin, director of research and consultancy at Colliers, an international property information provider.

"Many individual investors are waiting to see what happens with the stock market, waiting for a rebound. So we'll see large amounts of capital kept in the stock market for a long time," Lee said.

Qin Wu, a 34-year-old commercial real estate agent, invested 80,000 yuan in the stock market. Now he has less than half that. "I originally planned to buy a bigger apartment, but now that's impossible," said Qin.

But Shao Beihua, a product certifier, said she was lucky because she sold off all her stock holdings a week ago. Shao lives in an 80-sq-m home and plans to "save around 4,000 yuan per month and buy a bigger apartment within five years".

Shao Minghao, head of Hanyu Property research, said capital was flowing from the stock market to property at the end of last year, as the stock index climbed higher.

The number of investors in the nation's stock market is falling. New daily A-share investor accounts dropped to 11,198 on Jan 18 from the 113,461 average a week before, according to the China Securities Depository and Clearing Corp Ltd.

(China Daily January 26, 2008)