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A fifth of China’s urban housing supply lies empty, equivalent to 50 million homes
South China Morning Post ^ | 12/31/2018

Posted on 12/31/2018 4:54:46 PM PST by SeekAndFind

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s mantra that homes should be for living in is falling on deaf ears, with tens of millions of apartments and houses standing empty across the country.

Soon-to-be-published research will show roughly 22 per cent of China’s urban housing stock is unoccupied, according to Professor Gan Li, who runs the main nationwide study. That adds up to more than 50 million empty homes, he said.

The nightmare scenario for policymakers is that owners of unoccupied dwellings rush to sell if cracks start appearing in the property market, causing prices to spiral. The latest data, from a survey in 2017, also suggests Beijing’s efforts to curb property speculation - considered by leaders a key threat to financial and social stability - are coming up short.

“There’s no other single country with such a high vacancy rate,” said Gan, of Chengdu’s Southwestern University of Finance and Economics. “Should any crack emerge in the property market, the homes to be offloaded will hit China like a flood.”

One solution that the government could use is property or vacancy taxes to try to counter the issue, but neither appears imminent and some researchers, including Gan, say what actually counts as vacant could be tricky to determine.

Thousands of researchers fanned out across 363 counties last year as part of the China Household Finance Survey, which Gan runs at the university. The vacancy rate, which excludes homes yet to be sold by developers, was little changed from a 2013 reading of 22.4 per cent, he said by phone, adding that he was finalising the data for its release.

The 2013 study showed 49 million vacant homes, and Gan puts that number now at “definitely more than 50 million units.”

Housing speculation has bedevilled China’s leaders for years

(Excerpt) Read more at scmp.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: china; homes; realestate
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1 posted on 12/31/2018 4:54:46 PM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

See also here:

https://www.inkstonenews.com/business/inkstone-index-empty-homes/article/2180107

INKSTONE INDEX: CHINA’s EMPTY HOMES


2 posted on 12/31/2018 4:55:46 PM PST by SeekAndFind (look at Michigan, it will)
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To: SeekAndFind

If you build them, they will come

and, the truth is, they have come


3 posted on 12/31/2018 4:57:02 PM PST by bert ( (KE. N.P. N.C. +12) Princess Gray Beaver, for President?)
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To: SeekAndFind

A great example why command economies fail. A terrible misallocation of resources.


4 posted on 12/31/2018 4:57:26 PM PST by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: SeekAndFind

Maybe they should take in some of the Homeless population or illegals, will fill up fast.


5 posted on 12/31/2018 4:57:29 PM PST by easternsky
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To: SeekAndFind

You’d think with a billion people, China would be facing a housing shortage? Nah...


6 posted on 12/31/2018 4:58:36 PM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: All

This can’t be correct.

We keep hearing how the ChiComs out plan us in every way.

Supposedly, they have planned their housing decades beyond us.


7 posted on 12/31/2018 5:00:49 PM PST by Grampa Dave (Liberals/Democrats/GOPe's 2019 Strategy, mantra, plan = 'No Borders, No Walls, No USA at All!')
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To: goldstategop

RE: You’d think with a billion people,

Make that 1.4 Billion.


8 posted on 12/31/2018 5:01:08 PM PST by SeekAndFind (look at Michigan, it will)
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To: FreedomPoster

Actually, its mostly a free market economy. What we have here is a case where supply outstripped demand.

In this market, no one wants to sell.


9 posted on 12/31/2018 5:01:39 PM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: SeekAndFind

Great. Let’s send them some of our homeless!


10 posted on 12/31/2018 5:03:30 PM PST by Twotone
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To: Twotone

The old saying is build it and they will come. Not in China.


11 posted on 12/31/2018 5:05:09 PM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: SeekAndFind

Maybe we should cut a deal with China to send them the “refugees” invading the US


12 posted on 12/31/2018 5:06:39 PM PST by scottteng (Why fight it out lets split up the country peacefully now)
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To: goldstategop; FreedomPoster

They clearly overbuilt.

SEE HERE:

https://www.businessinsider.com/these-chinese-cities-are-ghost-towns-2017-4

12 eerie photos of enormous Chinese cities completely empty of people


13 posted on 12/31/2018 5:07:12 PM PST by SeekAndFind (look at Michigan, it will)
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To: SeekAndFind

Send them allah the refugees!!!!


14 posted on 12/31/2018 5:15:59 PM PST by null and void (The Deep State is why even though our economy is booming, the stock market is losing ground.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Those places are very shoddily built and have structural problems and cracks within a couple years of being built.


15 posted on 12/31/2018 5:22:22 PM PST by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not Averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: SeekAndFind

yes


16 posted on 12/31/2018 5:29:32 PM PST by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold ......)
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To: Secret Agent Man

Wait until the SF-Oakland bay bridge starts cracking. It already has.


17 posted on 12/31/2018 5:33:29 PM PST by DIRTYSECRET (urope. Why do they put up with this.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Those empty cities look like replacements for ones that will get nuked.


18 posted on 12/31/2018 5:34:02 PM PST by Rebelbase
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To: SeekAndFind
Too bad they didn't concentrate on building trailer homes. If China did that, then they could send them to us on container cargo ships and house our homeless in coastal cities.

Better yet, we load them up with homeless people and return the cargo ships to China fully loaded. Empty Chinese home problem solved.

19 posted on 12/31/2018 5:43:06 PM PST by roadcat
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To: FreedomPoster
A great example why command economies fail. A terrible misallocation of resources.

It would have been so much better to simply provide welfare checks and let all those workers sit home on the couch. Imagine that, having to work to earn your pay under a government program.

20 posted on 12/31/2018 5:43:58 PM PST by gunsequalfreedom
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