this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2024
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The industry that has traditionally powered about a quarter of GDP has been in a downward spiral that policymakers have struggled to halt

All across China, from Beijing in the north, to Shenzhen in the south, millions of newly built homes stand empty and unwanted. There were nearly 391m sq metres of unsold residential property in China as of April, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. That is the equivalent of Manchester and Birmingham combined – and then some – sitting as vacant, unwanted property.

This glut of idle property has caused a headache for the government, shaken the world’s second largest economy and raised tensions over the purpose of housebuilding in a nation where property investment had been viewed as a safe bet.

Since the real estate sector was sent into a tailspin in 2020, caused by the pandemic and a sudden regulatory crackdown, the industry that has traditionally powered about one-quarter of GDP has been in a downward spiral that policymakers have struggled to halt.

The crux of the problem is that, with shaky faith in the economy and big property developers failing to deliver on paid-for apartments, potential homebuyers are keeping their money out of the market.

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[–] HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com 52 points 5 months ago (2 children)

They are unwanted for the price that is wanted but for free I bet they could fill them up in a jiffy but that would make them dirty filthy communists and china don't want that ??? /s

[–] TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee 21 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Ehhh, you would think that. However, China currently has more housing than people. I think at the moment the excess housing in the country could home an extra 150m people.

You can knock them for ignoring basic fundamental economic ideas like supply and demand, but it's not like they have a large homeless population being unsheltered.

[–] zephyreks@lemmy.ml 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This is, again, just a plainly incorrect take. Basically everyone in China is housed, yes, but a vast proportion of them still live in rural villages. The rural-to-urban transition does need to be planned for, and it's been a huge factor in China's real estate market. China's urbanization rate today is 66%, compared to 75% in Russia and 83% in the US.

[–] TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I don't really see how your rebuttal conflicts with what I said? Unless you are claiming that developers were building housing for an eventual urbanization project that's going to migrate 150m people to cities within the next year or two......

These are still real estate companies we're talking about. They aren't wanting to be left holding the bag for years while their investment properties dry rot from prolonged vacancies.

[–] zephyreks@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Urbanization is expected to hit 75% by 2030... This is analysis corroborated by Morgan Stanley and others, so, unironically, yes.

[–] TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

That's still a bit of a long time for developers to have their money wrapped up in empty apartment complexes. Large buildings like that can start having major issues after months of vacancies, let alone years.

I think it's still more likely that developers'production exceeded immediate demand than it is for them to have planned for them to be vacant for years.

Either way, it's still not an economically sound idea. I think if they had planned for this, it wouldn't have hit the real estate market as hard as it has.

[–] zephyreks@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Basically, government officials knew that at some point they needed to aggressively overbuild real estate capacity in order to meet the urbanization demands. I think they predicted an incorrect curve: whereas they perhaps anticipated that urbanization would follow a trend more like Korea (74% at a similar stage in their urbanization trajectory), instead China is following a curve similar to Taiwan (~66%). A mistake in policy, yes, but it has localized effects.

Plus, I think you're missing a far more essential point: China doesn't give a fuck if every real estate developer goes bankrupt. That's just a cost of doing business. Instead, China's just swooping in and buying up distressed assets to turn into public housing. Homeowners aren't left holding the bag: developers are.

[–] TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee 7 points 5 months ago (6 children)

Plus, I think you're missing a far more essential point: China doesn't give a fuck if every real estate developer goes bankrupt.

Just because they operate a mixed economy doesn't mean they can ignore material realities. Investments going unrealized arguably have more negative outcomes for more socialized markets.

Instead, China's just swooping in and buying up distressed assets to turn into public housing. Homeowners aren't left holding the bag: developers are.

You can't wring blood from a stone. Its not like it's just the developers cash being used to build the housing, there are subsidies and investments from banks, which are owned by the government. So if a project goes under, the best case scenario is that they buy it back to get some return on investment, but that's still robbing peter to pay peter. It's just not sustainable, especially if you aren't making wind on your other plans like urbanization.

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[–] Gullible@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Does china house them or does china do something else with them?

[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Well they could use them as makeshift landfills for their garbage EVs, but people cannot live in them as there is no water, gas or electicity anywhere. And that's only half the problem because there are far more empty shells for an excuse of a home than there are people to populate them. It's one giant ponzi scheme that got completely out of hand over a decade ago and the government struggles a lot to restrain and keep it going at the same time so it doesn't collapse.

[–] HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com 14 points 5 months ago

yeah it is funny that an article talking about empty, unwanted units also talks about not delivering for poeple that bought them. Its a wierd situation.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 38 points 5 months ago (2 children)

What China needs to do is figure out a way to export this property to America, which needs more affordable homes.

That's doable, right?

[–] viking@infosec.pub 83 points 5 months ago (3 children)

I live in China. Trust me, you don't want to have those homes in the US. The house I live in has been completed in 2016 and I'm the first tenant, moved in in 2018, and it's got more issues than my dad's house from 1965. Houses here are built as cheaply as possible, skimping on building materials, safety, plumbing, insulation, wiring, etc.

The pricing bubble is just a joke on top. The actual value of the real estate here should be about 20-25% of what it is in reality - for example if I were to buy the house I'm renting right now, I'd break even after 114 years. Not taking any repairs or interest into account.

[–] ramble81@lemm.ee 6 points 5 months ago (4 children)

Sadly, that’s not much different than the US

[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 39 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

We're talking about high rise buildings with cardboard mixed into the concrete that collapse within less than 5 years in many many cases. They often don't have plumbing or electricity as they are only constructed to get people to invest in property, not to live in them. US citizens really don't know how much regulations and their enforcement are doing for them.

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[–] dogslayeggs@lemmy.world 16 points 5 months ago (10 children)

Nah, the situation is way different in the US. The construction quality is way way better due to building codes and actual enforcement of that. Though some construction does fall through the cracks, it's a good bet that the vast majority of construction here is safe. There is a pricing bubble here, but that's for different reasons. And renting here is nowhere near as cheap as this person says. They said it would take 114 years to pay back the cost of a house compared to renting. In the US, rent is usually slightly more or even much more than a mortgage and goes up over time, so your worst case scenario is less than 30 years.

[–] KevonLooney@lemm.ee 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yes. One reason why new housing in the US is expensive is because there are way more regulations now than there were years ago. Houses now are much safer and built better. But that makes them more expensive.

[–] dogslayeggs@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Tell me about it. I'm in the middle of construction right now, and the various hoops I've had to jump through and mazes of codes I've had to navigate are insane. And it all makes things so much more expensive. And the number of inspections and permit plan check meetings I've had to do has taken so much of my time.

I probably shouldn't have tried to GC this myself.

[–] KevonLooney@lemm.ee 4 points 5 months ago

Remember that all of those regulations are for a reason. Sometimes the reason is "contractors donated money to an elected official, but it's usually a good result. It's better to have higher quality than lower.

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[–] dumblederp@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

G'Day from the land down under of dogshit-quality housing-bubble-overpriced new builds. God I love how much money corporations are making.

[–] njm1314@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

Seriously, that describes what I've seen in the housing market these days to a T

[–] zephyreks@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 months ago (2 children)

You wouldn't want US homes in Europe, either. Most of the world has astonishingly shit construction in the name of higher profits and the understanding that housing has very limited lifespans.

Some US homes are great - robustly built, well-insulated, quiet, no leaky sewage, no leaky building membrane, wires routed properly, etc. Unfortunately, a lot of them were built decades ago. If you're evaluating them in terms of materials or construction quality, US housing quality has gone straight off a cliff. Sure, there's a bunch of glass facades on new buildings, but they hide the fact that sound insulation between units is nonexistent, the heat insulation is barely slapped together, the outlets aren't all plugged in, and the hot water either turns completely on or completely off. Tour a new California townhouse and tell me again that it's not built as cheaply as possible. Developers have figured out how to be stingy on everything you can't see and instead dump money on fancy appliances and a marble countertop... Even if the toilet clogs if you look at it funny and you can hear your neighbour three doors down humming to himself.

Meanwhile, most US new build apartments are 5 over 1s, which are notorious for being a tinderbox. Though, US fire code is really well done, so if there's a fire odds are you can make your way out in time.

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[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 25 points 5 months ago (3 children)

The construction quality is… shall we say, not great. Pretty sure lots of it would not pass code in the states - let alone Europe, Korea, or Japan.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 10 points 5 months ago

That's okay, I don't think we have teleportation technology yet anyway.

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[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 18 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Hm. That didn't work out too well. Maybe they could switch over their economy to be based on tulip bulbs? That's bound to work forever.

[–] cosmicrookie@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

In a communist state, why are unsold homes an issue? Why not just re home the millions living in bad conditions?

[–] trashgirlfriend@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

it's because China is a capitalist country with a capitalist economy.

[–] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

Can't they just give the homes to people to fulfill their Communist agenda?

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 2 points 5 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Since the real estate sector was sent into a tailspin in 2020, caused by the pandemic and a sudden regulatory crackdown, the industry that has traditionally powered about one-quarter of GDP has been in a downward spiral that policymakers have struggled to halt.

The crux of the problem is that, with shaky faith in the economy and big property developers failing to deliver on paid-for apartments, potential homebuyers are keeping their money out of the market.

Tao Ling, an official with the PBOC, said that local state-owned enterprises would be encouraged to use the funds to buy “reasonably priced” homes and turn them into affordable accommodation.

“While these local players are desperate to prove they can continue to deliver growth, they will be struggling with other priorities and unwilling to add to their debt obligations for investments that won’t provide any long-term profits.”

The authorities “know there isn’t really market demand” for the acres of unsold property, says Alicia García-Herrero, the chief economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis, an investment bank.

García-Herrero expects that there will be more fiscal reform to boost the impact of the policy, likely at the long delayed meeting of the Chinese Communist party’s central committee in July.


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