Chinese real estate developers have discovered an alternative to the renminbi, China’s currency, as they begin to advertise properties priced in “Pan”.

The new denomination is in fact a reference to Pan Shiyi, chairman of Soho China and one of the country’s most prominent property tycoons, used in a marketing trick that plays on public frustration with high housing prices.

In a microblog post this month, Mr Pan jokingly proposed that Apple should start offering its mobile phones for Rmb1,000 (US$157) each. Such an offer, he said, would endear millions of Chinese to Apple and its recently deceased chairman, Steve Jobs.

Mr Pan’s call drew an unexpected response from Tang Ruo­ding, a photojournalist. “When chairman Pan dies one day, could [Soho China] please also offer houses for Rmb1,000 per square metre, then more than a billion people will remember you,” he said on his own microblog.

After both posts went viral, Chinese netizens came up with the idea of the new currency, with one Pan shorthand for Rmb1,000 per square metre.

“This ridiculing of me is clearly a reflection of people’s dissatisfaction about the high property prices,” said Mr Pan.

This week, the craze spread to the real world. One Beijing developer, Tianjin Jinpu Weiye Realty, began marketing flats in one of its developments priced in Pan.

Soaring property prices, along with food inflation, have soured the mood of China’s young, and previously politically disinterested urban middle class.

“Our government’s economic policies are no longer good enough to help us improve our lives. It looks like I will never be able to buy a flat of my own,” said Lei Jin, a young Beijing woman.

Du Jinsong, an analyst at Credit Suisse in Hong Kong, said: “Nationwide, the average price for a flat is now seven times the average annual household income, but in Beijing and Shanghai it is more than 17 times. That compares with about three times in the US.”

Mr Pan deleted his original blog post, but to no avail. “Little did I know that after that, people would re-tweet it even more crazily,” he said. “Now that it has come to this new ‘currency’, no explanation will make any difference, so I can only keep silent.”