It looks like China’s response would work better in the USA than in China.
In terms of housing supply, China might have built enough overall as housing has become a major investment vehicle. Buying up second investment apartments and converting them to subsidized housing may be enough to solve overall supply.
Of course, China has to deal with the issue that housing is tied to retirement savings, so it needs to pop the housing bubble without starving those who are using their second and third apartments to find retirement.
Finally, the article doesn’t mention the lack of local government funding, which is a major reason why this mess got started. The Chinese property bubble is tied to municipal debt and there isn’t a mechanism for the local governments to raise money outside of real estate.
Paywall.
The archive link that was supplied works for me?
Not sure if this was there before, but that works for me. Thanks
Privatize the profits, socialize the losses.
Lots of people made bank, and now society is left holding the bag. The factory must grow!
What? The company is being made to pay for as much of the costs as possible by liquidating and selling off the CEO’s luxury properties. It’s also in line with Xi Jinping’s "Housing Should Be for Living In, Not for Speculation" policies
What you’re describing are capitalist countries like the US where the government just bails them out (socialized losses). Here, the losses are being forced on the company itself (privatized) as much as possible, as it should be.
This might hurt investor confidence, but I think the people who’ve done this with China’s homeownership rates prolly know what they’re doing
Ig we’ll see how this affects China’s housing in the coming years.
And I would argue it’s not enough. Banks made profits on the irresponsible loans, same as other investors and more corporate headpieces.
So no I’m not only talking about the EvUl CaPiTaLiStZ because apparently it’s also in China.
And yes housing is for living in not for speculation… as Japan also concluded some time ago.
True, I’d personally like to see them nationalize the whole thing and go full socialist altogether and not just market-socialist.
as Japan also concluded some time ago
What? Japan’s homeownership is even lower than the US’s at around 55%, whereas China is around 90% even with its massive population.
Japan’s is still for speculation, just very bad speculation.
Well in china also a lot of people ended up purchasing apparentments in the ghost cities as an investment… so how do these count? … Actual question, as this seems to be why the economy is in so much danger: since a lot of private people hold debts that are not covered by the actual value of the real estate it was used to purchase. So many people are insolvent at the moment.
And Japan was even worse (and is still bad, I only referenced it because there are so many parallels between china now and 80’s Japan real estate in terms of artificially inflated prices). and a bubble that stretched everywhere. In the aftermath the government concluded that speculation with the housing market due to artificial scarcity was a main driver in the risks… either good investment or affordable.
