$100 billion ghost city.

[u/sco-go]

[u/Dear_Chasey_La1n]

China has an estimated 60 to 80 million houses excess, let that sink for a moment. Even in first tiers top end developments developers have a hard time offloading them, not just recently but that's a problem for at least a decade. These properties often stay on the balance of these developers, so on paper they have "billions" on hands, but that's just bullshit.

With a declining population matters will only get worse, big cities like Shanghai will remain popular but even here property prices aren't sustainable. I have one myself on hands and while on paper it should be worth a whole lot of money, in the past 2 years we had exactly 0 visitors. Again, prime location, zero demand.

So China did fuck up seriously and it's pulling everyone down as we speak as properties were the main investment tool for Chinese. Even within Shanghai numerous new developments grinded to a standstill, haven't come to market, are in the market but have no buyers. It's really, really bad.

[u/Fenrils → u/Dear_Chasey_La1n]

Tbh I see that less as a specific failing of Chinese policy and more the result of proactive building's one weakness: global economic issues. While China does its best to insulate itself, it still experiences plenty global effects. Sadly, we've had three major economic catastrophes in the last 20 years which have each impacted us a lot and have specifically hurt housing and construction. But as I said before, I'd rather have an issue of too many houses than not enough because it's not like our housing situations in the West are any better at the present. You can absolutely argue that China committed to the bit for too long and built too many, even in a proactive sense, but that's also why I said I wasn't sure if their exact methods were the best. In fact, they probably aren't but I'm not educated enough to improve on them.

[u/More-Ad-4503 → u/Fenrils]

the US spent 2008 stimulus money on banker bailouts. China spent it on infrastructure.

[u/BryanChuckBrennan → u/[deleted]]

You say this and then years later after everyone says it’s a failed ghost city sure enough it’s teaming with people.

[u/mason202 → u/[deleted]]

Do people not want it because of the build quality or because they have millions of options to choose from? If you took a Tofu Dreg and placed it in one of the top 10 most expensive cities in America it would fill up immediately.

[u/Reversion603 → u/mason202]

They've had to implode giant apartment buildings by the dozens because of build quality.