China should boost rental housing programs in order to put its low and middle income citizens under affordable roofs, a U.S. real estate expert said Saturday.

Compared with buying houses, renting is a better way to provide affordable housing, as it requires no down payment and less commitment, Edward Marchant told Xinhua on the sidelines of the Harvard-China SMEs Conference.

The real estate professional, who also teaches at Harvard Kennedy School, noted that about one third of Americans live in rented houses, while the ratio in China is significantly lower.

A good partnership between public and private sectors, Marchant added, could play a critical role in developing affordable housing like rentals.

Meanwhile, he stressed that effective monitoring mechanisms should be in place to ensure, among others, that the rentals go to those in need and that the rents remain at affordable levels.

Boston is the second major stop of the Harvard-China SMEs Conference, which started Thursday in New York and involves the U.S. and Chinese scholars, researchers and executives of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

"As the capital of the Chinese companies become more and more abundant... the era for the Chinese companies to go overseas is approaching," Li Jin, an associate professor of finance at Harvard Business School, said at the forum.