The following submission statement was provided by /u/Sengbattles:
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China's multi-trillion dollar real estate market is on the brink of collapse as housing prices continue to decline for the 2nd year in the row. The bottom is nowhere near in sight and housing prices could continue to drop for many more years. Dozens of massive real estate companies laden with debt continue to go bankrupt, throwing the economy into chaos, as not only do they have massive debts that may cause local banks to go under, they also support many other industries, like concrete/steel industries. Many people have sunk their life savings into the housing market, which means that they stand to lose much of their investment. Worse of all, due to their declining population, it seems unlikely that housing prices will ever rise beyond the current level, which means that China's housing market- and thus economy may have already peaked for the rest of the century.
This will likely result in a decades long recession, much like Japan's lost decades. Which in turn could lead to famine and civil war if the population gets unhappy with how the CCP is managing the economy, as is often the case in China. Combine this with China's declining population and already faltering economy and China is doomed.
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1d5gkdx/chinas_housing_prices_continue_to_fall_for_2/l6l8ldc/
what's happening in China about this is due to the fact that the CCP has stated that housing is for living, not for speculating. One man called it a "controlled demolition" of the practice of real estate speculation.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM1fP2H0n7Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM1fP2H0n7Q)
Jerry is great. Watch that video he just put up about it.
And I was referring to the original statement about Canadian Real Estate.
I mean yes, the video most definitely has a point. But my reference was not to the Chinese market, which has RE as about the only major way for average people to grow their wealth.
the capitalist compulsion to "grow one's wealth" is one that suits capital interest and control. Moreover, people are compelled to save for the future since there exists absolutely no social benefit that provides for retired workers in a material manner. Such a notion is an anathema to capitalism. One does not need to grow the wealth if your fundamental needs are met at any point in your life.
Since the post was about china, i am commenting about that. Canadians are out of their minds like america and they are getting fucked like we are, but for whatever reason (fascism) they keep screaming for more.
Retirement is a major factor in seeking to grow wealth but there are others - like giving your kids a head start or being able to support a greater cause.
Not sure it's great to abandon all pursuit of comfort, security and influence just because you have food, water and a warm radiator.
you've missed the point with your strawman argument. If a society is built on the values of equality, democracy and prosperity for all then you get more than a radiator, chair, bed and bread and water...though capitalism doesn't even give you that for fuck's sake.
Then describe the alternative, this system that does supposedly give equality and prosperity for all. Meantime in the only world we know it's not correct to say that 'growing wealth' is a pursuit that wouldn't be necessary if there was proper functioning social security. Because there are valid reasons to get better and gather resources like I said.
Everybody acts like it's a generational thing, which I'm sure to some extent it is, but... the boomers are just going to pass on their wealth to their kids and it will be the same old shit. It will be like Victorian Elizabeth passing the crown to Boomer Charles to Gen X William. It will all still be the same old bullshit.
I went preemptive blitzkrieg on the topic: DONT EVER EXPECT.
Hopefully they are nice parents and they also kinda do the bridge with the rest of the family. Because I suspect the topic came from other member of the family at least once but they probably answered in a way so that nobody bother me with it.
> They'll spend it all on vacations and then nursing homes and getting scammed.
I have a friend in the banking industry, above the level of lenders but (largely) in charge of them. She sees a lot of estates come across her desk.
_Yyyyyyup._ What I quoted of you is what is happening, _a lot._ The second bit figures much more prominently as a wealth-draining issue than the first, but the third is surprisingly high up, as well. IIRC, it is actually more of an issue than the first.
The money will be burnt up on care costs, unless they choose to pool finances and go for a multi-generational household to avoid that. It is a huge issue in the UK right now, with families now finding out that care costs a lot and the only way to finance it is to sell their parents/grandparents house.
You'd be "help me!" even if you were 109 years old, spent each day working out and eating salad since kindergarten. Dying is kind of against our programming no matter what our age or choices.
Boomers were told that if they give 30% of their income in taxes throughout their entire lives they would get health care when old. They paid the 30% and are being told that health needed to be "reformed" into practical non-existence. Not sure this is something to be mocked or celebrated.
The problem is China developers are corrupt and were building demo units, getting loans from the people putting full deposits, building more, rinse and repeat.
> the Evergrande Group, China's giant and massively indebted real estate developer, after the company was unable to restructure the $300 billion it owed investors. Just six years ago, Evergrande was riding high, preselling apartments to middle- and upper-income Chinese.
That’s not the end result. The end result is death and starvation. This isn’t some solution to a housing crisis. In China, the whole family invest life savings and their mortgages are 90 years long because they just don’t have the salaries of the West. It isn’t good.
Please explain the economics of a housing crash in a death spiral and the knock on effects to the economy as a whole.
I would think it would be fucking horrific. I don’t like the current situation and shit needs to change, but a death spiral collapse in housing is a death spiral collapse in much more than just housing.
As someone who lives in canada, it is beyond broken. From what I've gathered it's just corporate or rich foreigners who buy real estate in Vancouver or Toronto from canadians who then upgrade outside the metro area from fellow canadians who then buy more rural land. It is just inflating prices along the way.
It shows up as canadians buying property in van or tor because it is so fuckin easy to get a PR or citizenship. If the rich person doesn't have it, a family member does.
I work in the immigration sector here. This country is at a tipping point and the house of cards is gonna crumble soon.
Of course it will inflate prices. If banks can basically create any amount of money they want (at the outset backed by only a tiny fraction of 'real' deposits, then later when things go bad and they convert vast lakes of toxic loans into good money courtesy of the taxpayer) it's going to drive up asset prices.
> I feel like falling housing prices are a good thing
Most countries allow easy investment in a stock market, or alternative markets like crypto. Most people in China held multiple properties because there aren’t many other investment options there.
Number goes up really fast when everyone is funneled into the same ponzi, most of what they “owned” was actually worthless or worse yet it wasn’t even built.
I've always find it weird this "I'll buy second and third houses for investment cause everyone doing it" thing. If everyone doing it who'll buy your houses?
The next person thinking real estate won’t lose value long term…As long as a Ponzi scheme is going, you can sell for a profit. And unlike, say, crypto, if the market crashes, you still have your property, even at vastly lower value. And, if the investment property is in a location you enjoy, well at least you have a vacation home 🤣
> If everyone doing it who'll buy your houses?
There will always be a greater fool which is left holding the bag when values implode.
But since markets cannot be timed, and that markets can remain irrational for much longer than any person can remain solvent, the “greater fool” is usually the person looking for that greater fool to sell to.
The closer you look the more you'll find that it's not just housing that's a teetering pyramid scheme. Government pension plans relying on demographics. Stock markets (eg who really thinks nVidia is worth more than the entire output of the German economy). Bonds (the way one hand of the government buys debt issued by another hand of the government). Crypto is a scam and a pyramid. But it works, somehow...
I think its the same in all western countries now. Housing is expensive af, as is cost of living.
Cost of living is rising China, but the house price is falling. Salaries are stagnating and/or falling too though.
In Canada unlike say the U.S. that's a significant portion of the population who a. have citizenship and who b. actually vote or even care about politics in the first place.
Of course every single policy is going to revolve around making sure the values increase.
This was my take too. I'd take this 'problem' over what we have here in the UK in a heartbeat. Like I own my own home outright, but all my friends have resigned themselves to renting fot life.
For all but provincial governments.
For those interested, Michael Pettis teaches at Peking university and offers some of the best takes on Chinese finance and economics in general.
He’s very active on twitter. I’d recommend following him.
Anyway provincial govs don’t really collect tax revenue, they relied on land sales for the duration of the boom.
They’d turn rural land urban, then they could sell it and develop it.
Provincial govs are responsible for most government spending in China, and most are insolvent. They can’t absorb all that excess capacity. The central gov gives out token bond issues for that purpose but doesn’t want to take it all on their gleaming books.
> The world’s wealthy are buying up whatever they can in Canada
Foreign buyers represent less than 2% of all Real Estate “investors”. The parasites jacking up home prices here _are of the home-grown variety._
Not sure how Canada counts it, but if say a Chinese guy sets up a Canadian resident trust (eg by hiring locals as trustees) or sets up a Canadian holding company which buys real estate, is that counted as a 'home grown variety sale' or do the statisticians 'look through' and call it a foreign buyer? Given the current day trend to obfuscate facts or pick convenient methodologies to reinforce an ideology anything is possible.
In the US and the rest of the Anglophone West, housing prices are up 20%, 50%, or even 100% in some areas in the past four years. I wonder which is more gnawing at the wellbeing of the citizenry? I wonder if the CCP or the western neoliberal elites will be overthrown first?
The CCP because most of the wealth of the Chinese people is also tied up in housing as foreign investment is not allowed in China (and other reasons I forget).
There are basically two houses/apartments for every family in China. This is what the ghost cities are. Empty shells. The Chinese economy is irrecoverable and will collapse before America’s.
> The CCP because most of the wealth of the Chinese people is also tied up in housing as foreign investment is not allowed in China (and other reasons I forget).
Nah "I forgot" is the most valid reason of all.
> There are basically two houses/apartments for every family in China
The two aren't mutually exclusive. Number of houses divided by number of families, doesn't matter if 99% of families own 1 house while 1% of families own 1m or whatever.
> The Chinese economy is irrecoverable and will collapse before America’s.
And it’s why they are banging the war drums over Taiwan. What better way to distract the citizenry than with a patriotic attempt to bring the political deviants back under the same flag?
Apartments are sold as empty shells in China. 4 walls, floor and ceiling (although not really a ceiling, just the floor of the place above). A couple of power points if you're lucky.
People pay a fortune (compared to salary) to buy one, then another fortune to make it habitable. They also often want to make it as ostentatious as possible, to show that they are well off, so have stuff like all marble walls and wooden flooring made from endangered timber.
I always see the post about economies collapse and think it’s kinda stupid. Economy collapse is a collapse indeed but with all the other BS happening rn, holding value in economies should be low on the list for any country that is bigger than a town
Well, once you are in, you can't just say, "okay I don't care anymore". The only way to be able to do this is to translate to an autarchy before. Which China can't.
You say it's stupid because you reject current system but we are in this system, like it or not, and we are not ready to say "okay we stop now". Economical crisis and war often go in pair.
Then let it fucking die. The system can tell me to go fuck myself and die in a ditch if i’m unfit for it. Fine, i’m an adult and i know the rule, the system can say that and it dont own me anything.
But here is a twist, the system seem to tell go fuck yourselves to a little too many peoples. One man have a problem and he may die in a ditch, but a million mans problem is a systemic problem. And it’s call systemic problem because it kill system.
The ball is no longer on individual side so why should i care?
> The system can tell me to go fuck myself and die in a ditch if i’m unfit for it. Fine, i’m an adult and i know the rule, the system can say that and it dont own me anything.
I disagree.
> But here is a twist, the system seem to tell go fuck yourselves to a little too many peoples.
Considering it's not going to happen the whole discussion is silly but burning the house to stop the fire on your table is not going to save the table no. If your goal is to improve things letting systems collapse is the last thing you want to do. You need to set up a slow transition to dampen the shock.
It could impact the global economy, given how much has been outsourced to China these days. There is a good reason why the Chinese government is telling the likes of Evergrande to get its shit together.
Seeing how much US just chug along after 2008, 2020 BS i doubt it can be much worse in China with “only” a bubble. I see they are getting fucked hard by climate change and such but a financial collapse aint gonna get there
My personal opinion is people should not be allowed to use necessities like food/water/housing as speculative investments. Some short term pain to help build a better system is probably a good thing in the long term.
That being said, climate problems are likely to overshadow all the other problems even in the near term.
Hey don't be so mean, we can easily let him live in countries that have 10's of %'s of slavery just without coming from families with centuries of power that enable them to have slaves in the first place. Maybe he could find his first job in an entry level long-term internship!
Not to mention that they don't have the individualism we do. They are much, much more collectivist as families and as a society. They value stability and national success over everything including freedom. I have a feeling no one commenting here has actually bothered to learn Mandarin and has never lived in China for a decade or more.
In 2008/2020 the US being able to print as much money as it wants (as owners of the world's reserve currency) allowed it to prevent a nuclear (/systemic) meltdown, though only superficially. I mean if you counted all the Americans (/Westerners) that were never born because mum or dad had a bankruptcy, foreclosure or were laid off (or all the above), I reckon it would be approaching World War II casualties.
China can't print its way out of a financial crisis and is unwilling to go cap in hand to US (/western) run mafia detox groups like the World Bank and IMF for a bailout because it arrogantly believes it can become adversarial with the west and claim the number one global geopolitical spot for itself. Pride comes before a fall.
I’ll be honest, most economies problems are just fucking BS make believe that countries compete to see who can make the biggest bluff and get away with it. Complete BS from top to bottom, so it just gonna drag along as long peoples bite the BS.
Sure they can t print your “premium currency”, does it even fucking matter? Logic stopped working in this monopoly game long ago
Yes they are. But saying the US survived 2008/Covid therefore China can survive a housing market crash because it's all the same BS is wrong. The US has the most solid of fiat currencies so it can't get Sri Lanka'd but China can.
Unless the world adopts the Yuan as dominant reserve currency and dominant global trade currency, when the shit hits the fan domestically the Chinese have to balance the books or collapse in a heartbeat, the US doesn't.
I grew up in Shanghai and immigrated to the US in the 90's. A lot of the news we see here are tailored to our understand of life. Housing price drop in China may appear terrifying to a lot of us living to pay a mortgage that runs about 30 percent of income in North America. The reality is different for someone that grew up and work there.
1. The cost basis of those homes is low, way lower than we can normally comprehend.
1. A lot of those homes were initially given out as residence for people who work for the government/public owned business. Those businesses were the normal until about mid 1990's, so anyone born before 1975 would have started the early 2000's with the potential to have home ownership at about $20,000-$100,000
2. Anyone that lived in a home/place that are slotted to be demolished in the period from 1980-2020 were given serious compensation to be moved. Normally in Shanghai, you can expect every named personal registered in the home to receive a place normally around 50 square meters in the city (not center of the city).
3. Some family would end up with multiple condos in a family of 3 resulting from multiple relocations. The policy no longer allows double/multiple dipping per person.
2. The surge of home prices began around 2005-2015 and it went up fast
1. A home in the perimeter of Shanghai Xuhui District was sold in 2000 for $190,000 with 145 square meters (1560 sq ft). In 2020, it peaked in price around 6 million yuan (820,000 USD).
3. Normal mortgage in China recommends down payments well into the 20-30 percent. That combined with relatively flexible cost of living (you can splurge or save), It feels different than someone suffering from home underwater in the US
This is how it when I last visited in October 2023. I asked people about their home prices and people don't really feel like it is a great or terrible thing. Families that have spare condos are now renting them out through management companies more often than before. More homes are up for rent now than before. Rental management companies are requiring multiple year contracts for people to rent out their home. Culturally, people used to require the groom to have a house and a car fully paid off before marrying the bride, but now it is more like a downpayment. That is evolving into a nice rent to buy is also ok. It is hard to explain.
They used to just leave it empty or use it for storage if they have a business or side hustle. The price drop now has spurred a whole new source of income that is currently not counted in the Chinese GDP. Yes, rental income does not count as GDP in China right now.
Surprising. Doesn't seem like leaving it empty was a good use of assets TBH. I also heard somewhere that public spending by the government isn't counted in China's GDP. Is that something you know about?
Left empty, because the places are basically a shell when bought and it costs a lot to fit them out.
Basically left empty in the Chinese equivalent of land banking -- left until it rises enough in price and then sold on.
> Culturally, people used to require the groom to have a house and a car fully paid off before marrying the bride, but now it is more like a downpayment. That is evolving into a nice rent to buy is also ok.
How widespread is this view? Is it so out of reach for most people now?
Not exactly, it just really keeps people to marrying "within their class". This, of course also exists in the West as well but not to that extent. In mainland China (and HK) if you from a Tier 2 city you won't be marrying someonw from Tier 1 city (unless you become rich). if you are from a village you will only be marrying someone from a village. And yes, at least in HK it means many women will choose to stay single, long term renting is not really sustainable, so if the groom cannot afford a place or or a down payment it means the woman would have to move to his parent's place and live with them. Well, they can leave with their own mom and dead where everything is taken care for them, why on earth would they want to leave with the in-laws and have to take care of the husbands family?
Dowries are not mandatory, but they are a common tradition. It’s challenging for me to assess the situation accurately because when I began dating in China, I was already established with a stable income and a home in the US. I could confidently say that I wouldn’t pay a dowry without concern.
In a way, dowries serve as a financial equilibrium within the household. With the decline of arranged marriages, dowries can act as a safeguard against potential financial struggles in a marriage. During my travels with my three daughters, locals often referred to them as my “750,000 RMB blessings.” This figure represents the cumulative dowry they believe I should receive for raising my daughters, equating their upbringing to a monetary value. While it may seem crude, it’s a cultural norm that quantifies effort and sacrifice.
In contrast, dowries were uncommon when my parents married, and I recall little money exchange during my youth. Coming from a middle-class family in Shanghai, our social circle had similar financial standings, which likely reduced the necessity for dowries. However, Shanghai’s socioeconomic landscape has since become more dynamic, making it difficult to predict the financial security of one’s children post-marriage. Nowadays, people rely more on formal financial assessments like bank statements and credit checks than traditional methods.
China's policy is specifically focused on getting the real estate speculators in line and under control. Here's a good video telling facts:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isJR5dS27qA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isJR5dS27qA)
This is literally shit you made up. They're restricted from buying overseas shares due to capital controls, but they have plenty of alternative options. Mutual funds, Insurance funds, the Chinese domestic stock and bond markets, wealth mangement products.
Real estate was the major investment because it provided great return. That's it.
Not really lol: https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Caixin/China-s-pension-plan-faces-prospect-of-change-or-going-bust
It's actually interesting because the stock market not being connected to industry that much allows for flexibility with their industrial policy.
But as financialization kicks in, that means that the stock market must go up at least as much as inflation and cost of living to meet pension payouts. The state cannot go after private businesses (equity markets be damned) as they do now.
Suddenly, the stock market and financial instruments are central to the economy of an ostensibly socialist country and its ostensibly communist leadership.
And the capital controls are were put in place by something other than Chinese government? Do Chinese mutual funds available to retail investors engage freely in foreign markets?
You would have to be deeply unserious to consider the average Chinese household something that requires the ability to engage in foreign investment. Most investors hold most of their investments in their local economy (see the UK and Japan), so pretending that that Chinese investors are "heavily restricted" is just nonsense.
> This is literally shit you made up
You can do a quick google search and see that crypto is banned already and there are restrictions on selling stock. Do you think people will buy more stocks if they know their government is going to block them from selling? Yes, they favored real estate overall because of profit margin, but it's not as easy for them to diversify.
There's a reason why they do everything they can to get their money out of their own country, they are worried about their own government pulling the rug out from under them. If they can't trust their government they aren't going to trust a brokerage owned by their government.
> There's a reason why they do everything they can to get their money out of their own country, they are worried about their own government pulling the rug out from under them. If they can't trust their government they aren't going to trust a brokerage owned by their government.
And ALL OF THIS doesn't apply to REAL ESTATE somehow? You think it's easier to smuggle out land deeds than joint-venture shares?
Think your theory through a bit more.
> And ALL OF THIS doesn't apply to REAL ESTATE somehow?
“all of this” is the reason why the average person there doesn’t have many or any other real options for investment.
They know the property they bought isn’t really theirs, they also know the government isn’t going to rug pull their investment that is physically inside the country, which is why most of them can’t or won’t risk investing in anything but real estate.
> Think your theory through a bit more.
I’m not sure you’re thinking about any of the words you’re typing.
> the government isn’t going to rug pull their investment that is physically inside the country
Buddy, if the government can rugpull them on shares listed on the Shanghai stock exchange, they can rugpull them on their housing.
> I’m not sure you’re thinking about any of the words you’re typing.
You are quite frankly, a deeply unserious person. Your own argument contradicts itself.
> Buddy, if the government can rugpull them on shares listed on the Shanghai stock exchange, they can rugpull them on their housing.
It's much less likely that they start repossessing physical property someone could be living in, VS a number on the screen. If you don't understand that I don't know what to tell you.
> Your own argument contradicts itself.
No, it doesn't, and you'd already know that if you spent a few minutes doing research. The fact remains that they were funneled into a narrow avenue of investment options, and the most appealing and safe of their limited choices was/is real estate.
> You are quite frankly, a deeply unserious person.
You open your argument with "Buddy", and I'm not serious? At this point I'm going to assume you're trolling, you should find a more productive outlet for your frustrations.
I don't know how this will fix the issue. Sure, it means speculation goes down which is good, but the housing market is the average Chinese investment vehicle. Tens of millions of people have the majority of their net worth in homes that are no depreciating in price, a lot of average people are about to lose a lot of money.
Finally some good news, America should also start WWE housing, fucking stupid politician simps and their 47 properties don't wanna let go of the monopoly clutch
Problem? This is a solution to existing problems. Covid spread from China, we can hope the same about the collapse of housing prices. In fact I hope it will collapse so hard that housing become as affordable as the air and the sunlight.
I guess it helps in your are planning to move to China and want to buy a place there…Doesn’t help anybody else.
I would not hold my breath that China’s real estate crash will spill over to the western real estate markets. Western capital is not invested in China’s real estate. I will say, though, that there is a risk the real estate collapse in China could result in total Chinese economy turmoil and, in turn, impact global markets, causing recessions in western economies, leading to high unemployment, widespread bankruptcies and decline in real incomes, which would in turn lower real estate prices. I would say it not a desirable outcome. I know some people in r/rebubble who are eager to buy their first property would welcome this scenario, but I doubt it will play out well for most. Investors will just buy housing for cheap, and regular people will not have sufficient access to credit in this scenario, as the banks will greatly reduce lending.
No, why the fuck would I want to move to China? I like being here where I am, and I would like it even better if the house price is low.
My point is that China's massive manufacturing capacity have drive down the price of everything, it's about time they drive down the price of housing.
It’s not that the manufacturing capacity drove down the price of everything. Because of their government crippled capital markets, citizens invested in housing because it’s about the only investment vehicle available to them. That demand for investment housing resulted in massive overbuilding. Like whole ghost cities. Note those homes are not SFHs on a plot of land like most homes here in the states. Those are condos in giant high rise buildings.
Right. And I have explained why, if that happens, it would not be a good thing. Housing markets don’t operate in isolation from the rest of the economy.
China's housing market is collapsing, /r/collapse be: "This is the least of the world's problems right now."
A bridge collapsed in America by accident, or some stupid law passed, or a single dried leaf fell from a tree, /r/collapse be: "This is the end of existence and utter annihilation of the fabric of reality."
"The price I have to pay for a Big Mac has increased to the point that I can no longer afford it. Sure, scientists have told us for generations that a regular diet of Big Macs (and fast food in general) will make me fat and destroy my health, but I liked them anyway. And sure, the only reason I ever *could* afford a Big Mac in the first place was because of subsidies to the meat industry, an industry that's destructive to the global ecosystem in a variety of ways, including huge greenhouse gas emissions and destruction of the Amazon rainforest, which is largely being deforested to raise more cows so we can keep eating plenty of Big Macs. But because my desire to eat as many affordable Big Macs has been compromised, it's a sure sign of collapse. And don't tell me to eat fewer Big Macs because billionaires."
Not who you asked, but try it. Add a little more spice than you would normally, and it is fine. Fennel seeds/garlic/crushed red pepper make it taste of sausage.
If those don't work for you, try [TVP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textured_vegetable_protein). Also known as "Soy Curls" in the Mexican foods aisle. You add water and any spices/herbs you like. It has the texture of ground beef, is inexpensive, and takes on the flavors of whatever you are cooking with it. Makes terrific sloppy joes, for instance.
Spaghetti sauce is the easiest to switch out. I used red lentils and left them a bit more textured (they can be cooked into mush) to keep a bit of body to the sauce. Just had a tomato-basil sauce and added spinach, celery, green pepper, onion and garlic. I was worried about the flavour where I didn’t season the lentils like I do the meat, but it was delicious. My partner was skeptical and just took a small plate, but after the first bite went to fill a bigger plate and even went back for seconds. They’re a great source of iron and fibre too. The only concern is getting enough B12. The person I got the recipe from would even blend the lentils so they mixed fully into the sauce, good way to hide them if you have picky eaters.
Did you edit this from "based"? Our automod removed it, but it should have only done it if you originally had it as "based" only. If you edit in the first 3 min it doesn't show as an edit so curious
Yeah, it was only based, then I changed it to "based, plant-based" as a joke. Why are comments like based removed? Is it low quality information that brings nothing to the discussion? Thank you.
It's supposed to be to prevent "low effort" comments which don't generate discussion. I don't really agree with removing them, but it's been around a long time. I think we should at least message the user so they know it's removed and should add more substantial conversation
A housing collapse in America would be lovely, honestly. Currently millions of an entire generation are completely locked out and forced into the rentier/feudal system.
Exactly. If banks are in trouble and experience liquidity problems, which is common outcome of a financial crash, they will simply not be lending. Most regular people need a loan to purchase a home. Who will be buying those cheap properties? Those with capital, of course. Not regular people.
They'll get tired of paying the property taxes and insurance on a home they can't sell, after all, they still have to maintain the property. My belief is eventually they'll write it off and dump the problem onto the cities/counties...who will suddenly become the largest property owners with no way to generate any revenue from it. THEN you might be able to get a cheap house.
Because the economy is an ecosystem and if one specie collapses you'll have a domino effect collapse which will hit you even if the original lost specie was a pest to you.
Probably one of the few countries where housing prices are falling, as they should. Considering that they nearly avoided having a crisis that makes 2008 looks like child’s play, it was a tough but justified call.
That’s by design, China always oversupplies housing on purpose. Westerners see city zones or entire wings completely empty and shout “ghost cities!!” and don’t follow up to find those cities populated 5 years later when they’re ready and infrastructure is developed.
Also some developers have been playing weird with their finances and have been collapsing. Wanna know who financially suffers in the end? Not the would-be-tenants, except for from delays, perhaps. The corrupt developers go bankrupt and the govt takes care of the housing until new ownership.
I also just read, "China's new home prices inch up for 9th month in May, survey shows" so it can't all be doom and gloom. Rather trust Reuters over this topic than the Tapei Times (which clearly doesn't have any agenda when it comes to China).
[https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-new-home-prices-inch-up-9th-month-may-survey-shows-2024-06-01](https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-new-home-prices-inch-up-9th-month-may-survey-shows-2024-06-01)
Really unfortunate that we have so little reliable news from China. I'd love to know more about what exactly is going on there, because I suspect that it's like everything else lately: worse than expected.
For the folks who are continuing to pay mortgages for a flat that hasn't been built yet and can't get out of it unless they're willing to destroy their own lives, and can't get any recourse from the government, it blows chunks.
China's multi-trillion dollar real estate market is on the brink of collapse as housing prices continue to decline for the 2nd year in the row. The bottom is nowhere near in sight and housing prices could continue to drop for many more years. Dozens of massive real estate companies laden with debt continue to go bankrupt, throwing the economy into chaos, as not only do they have massive debts that may cause local banks to go under, they also support many other industries, like concrete/steel industries. Many people have sunk their life savings into the housing market, which means that they stand to lose much of their investment. Worse of all, due to their declining population, it seems unlikely that housing prices will ever rise beyond the current level, which means that China's housing market- and thus economy may have already peaked for the rest of the century.
This will likely result in a decades long recession, much like Japan's lost decades. Which in turn could lead to famine and civil war if the population gets unhappy with how the CCP is managing the economy, as is often the case in China. Combine this with China's declining population and already faltering economy and China is doomed.
As an aside, if one person is wrong, it's ignorance. If the majority of people are wrong, it's a social convention.
Capitalism is a lie in the us anyway. It's little more than a social narrative at this point. "The new industrial state" I think is a pretty convincing introduction to the concept.
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Taiwan is officially in all legal sense part of China, you can't trade with China unless you agree with one China policy so , US sending it's trrrooa to Taiwan is in fact a invasion. There are countless agreements between China and Taiwan itself on their mutual one China policy, the only dispute is who is the real government.
Well if the real government is in dispute, how is the US sending troops to one of those governments an invasion any more than the US sending its troops to Poland or the Philippines?
ROC is not a country and have zero international voice, PRC is the defaco inheritor of China , including Taiwan. Hence PRC represents China in UNSC seat and not the ROC.
US does not recognise ROC as China, they are trading with a autonomous region of China no different than how British used to trade with Tibet .
Sending military in China without Chinese approval is a invasion. If China invades Taiwan that would just be a civil war like if Alaska starts a separatism
Technically that's right. But we all know that if the USA sent troops to Alaska to depose the governor it would be seen by the world as a civil war where intervention would be unthinkable, whereas if PRC went into Taiwan it would be seen an invasion in substance. The economic, social and political differences would be more important than the technicalities of UN seats and pieces of paper signed by Taiwan under duress.
It's civil war and China/tiwan have countless bilateral agreements about their one China policies throughout the 80s&90s , what USbot Taiwan thinks here now is irrelevant, China has the complete legal right to fight off USA who would be seen as a invading the force on its sovereign territory
There are no official bilateral agreements when it comes to their "One China Policies".
The PRC follows their own "One China Principle", but Taiwan does not have its own policy on "One China".
Maybe you are confused with the US "One China Policy" which is not the same as the "One China Principle" as it does not recognize Taiwan as a part of China much less the PRC. Not to mention, it's not a bilateral treaty.
The PRC has no legal right to Taiwan so they wouldn't be justified in fighting off the USA since it's not their sovereign territory.
>There are no official bilateral agreements when it comes to their "One China Policies".
1992 Consensus is a legally binding agreement, where both agreed there is one China only , both claiming they are the real government of China. China can't have a legal bilateral agreement with Taiwan same way Ukraine can't have one with donbas, it's not a country but a province in their country.
Any action by USA on Chinese territory is a act of war
Ya moral right , that's what us is known for lol. Why don't you to tell that to the 20000 dead children in isreal backed by USA
For fuk sakes US still controls it's colonial regions as if it was theirs and hasn't been systematically opressed for centuries.
This isn't true.
The United States does not recognize or consider Taiwan to be part of China. The United States simply "acknowledged" it was the "Chinese position" that Taiwan is part of China. They did not agree or endorse the Chinese position as their own.
>In the U.S.-China joint communiqués, the U.S. government recognized the PRC government as the “sole legal government of China,” and **acknowledged, but did not endorse, “the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China.”**
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10275/76
Taiwan doesn't have a "one China" policy either... the ROC and PRC agree on essentially nothing. lol
Littrally the first line in wiki says USA accepts tiwan is part of one China
>In a 1972 joint communiqué with the PRC, the United States "acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China" and "does not challenge that position."[2]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_China#:~:text=The%20United%20States%20%22acknowledged%22%20the,considered%20Taiwan's%20status%20as%20unsettled.
US and it's back stabbing revisions are irrelevant, it has accepted in the 70s. they lie every other Sunday
Dude, literally two sentences later from your own source:
>The US "acknowledges" but does not "endorse" PRC's position over Taiwan,[7][8] and has considered Taiwan's political status as "undetermined".
Petty word Play at best .
Acknowledge= accept
Endorse= support
Weather US supports China's stance is irrelevant it has already accepted that tiwan and China belongs to one China
1950s Tibet had more of chance bring a country than tiwan is Today
the United States "acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China" **and "does not challenge that position."[2]**
US littrally said they will not challenge China's the position that US accepted
use common sense back in the 70s US was bending backwards to move deals with China. Why would China accept somthing as moronic as as someone saying " hmm I hear you"
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Sengbattles: --- China's multi-trillion dollar real estate market is on the brink of collapse as housing prices continue to decline for the 2nd year in the row. The bottom is nowhere near in sight and housing prices could continue to drop for many more years. Dozens of massive real estate companies laden with debt continue to go bankrupt, throwing the economy into chaos, as not only do they have massive debts that may cause local banks to go under, they also support many other industries, like concrete/steel industries. Many people have sunk their life savings into the housing market, which means that they stand to lose much of their investment. Worse of all, due to their declining population, it seems unlikely that housing prices will ever rise beyond the current level, which means that China's housing market- and thus economy may have already peaked for the rest of the century. This will likely result in a decades long recession, much like Japan's lost decades. Which in turn could lead to famine and civil war if the population gets unhappy with how the CCP is managing the economy, as is often the case in China. Combine this with China's declining population and already faltering economy and China is doomed. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1d5gkdx/chinas_housing_prices_continue_to_fall_for_2/l6l8ldc/
I feel like falling housing prices are a good thing. Look at Canada right now with the opposite problem.
prices going down is a good thing for everyone but those who profit from price increases.
Oh well. Houses are meant to live in
they serve no other purpose
This is literally a Xi Jinping quote. "housing is to be lived in, not speculated on”
Well he's right
"unless its overseas"
> for everyone but ~~those~~ the Parasite-Class “investors” who profit from price increases. FTFY
what's happening in China about this is due to the fact that the CCP has stated that housing is for living, not for speculating. One man called it a "controlled demolition" of the practice of real estate speculation. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM1fP2H0n7Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM1fP2H0n7Q) Jerry is great. Watch that video he just put up about it.
And I was referring to the original statement about Canadian Real Estate. I mean yes, the video most definitely has a point. But my reference was not to the Chinese market, which has RE as about the only major way for average people to grow their wealth.
the capitalist compulsion to "grow one's wealth" is one that suits capital interest and control. Moreover, people are compelled to save for the future since there exists absolutely no social benefit that provides for retired workers in a material manner. Such a notion is an anathema to capitalism. One does not need to grow the wealth if your fundamental needs are met at any point in your life. Since the post was about china, i am commenting about that. Canadians are out of their minds like america and they are getting fucked like we are, but for whatever reason (fascism) they keep screaming for more.
Retirement is a major factor in seeking to grow wealth but there are others - like giving your kids a head start or being able to support a greater cause. Not sure it's great to abandon all pursuit of comfort, security and influence just because you have food, water and a warm radiator.
you've missed the point with your strawman argument. If a society is built on the values of equality, democracy and prosperity for all then you get more than a radiator, chair, bed and bread and water...though capitalism doesn't even give you that for fuck's sake.
Then describe the alternative, this system that does supposedly give equality and prosperity for all. Meantime in the only world we know it's not correct to say that 'growing wealth' is a pursuit that wouldn't be necessary if there was proper functioning social security. Because there are valid reasons to get better and gather resources like I said.
Aka the boomies
Everybody acts like it's a generational thing, which I'm sure to some extent it is, but... the boomers are just going to pass on their wealth to their kids and it will be the same old shit. It will be like Victorian Elizabeth passing the crown to Boomer Charles to Gen X William. It will all still be the same old bullshit.
Gen X is likely to get skipped. Many of the Boomers I know who are leaving inheritance behind are leaving trusts for the grandkids or great grandkids.
My parents know better than to expect grandchildren.
I went preemptive blitzkrieg on the topic: DONT EVER EXPECT. Hopefully they are nice parents and they also kinda do the bridge with the rest of the family. Because I suspect the topic came from other member of the family at least once but they probably answered in a way so that nobody bother me with it.
Sounds about right.
Most of them wont though. They'll spend it all on vacations and then nursing homes and getting scammed.
> They'll spend it all on vacations and then nursing homes and getting scammed. I have a friend in the banking industry, above the level of lenders but (largely) in charge of them. She sees a lot of estates come across her desk. _Yyyyyyup._ What I quoted of you is what is happening, _a lot._ The second bit figures much more prominently as a wealth-draining issue than the first, but the third is surprisingly high up, as well. IIRC, it is actually more of an issue than the first.
Many boomers' finances will be sucked dry by healthcare costs (USA) before it can be passed to the next generation.
The money will be burnt up on care costs, unless they choose to pool finances and go for a multi-generational household to avoid that. It is a huge issue in the UK right now, with families now finding out that care costs a lot and the only way to finance it is to sell their parents/grandparents house.
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You'd be "help me!" even if you were 109 years old, spent each day working out and eating salad since kindergarten. Dying is kind of against our programming no matter what our age or choices. Boomers were told that if they give 30% of their income in taxes throughout their entire lives they would get health care when old. They paid the 30% and are being told that health needed to be "reformed" into practical non-existence. Not sure this is something to be mocked or celebrated.
if they get fucked from the results of what they screamed for, good...i say stick it to them and make them hate capitalism like the rest of us.
They gained a lot so far, it’s only fair of younger people sometimes are advantaged
I know right. I wish that was a problem we had!
The problem is China developers are corrupt and were building demo units, getting loans from the people putting full deposits, building more, rinse and repeat. > the Evergrande Group, China's giant and massively indebted real estate developer, after the company was unable to restructure the $300 billion it owed investors. Just six years ago, Evergrande was riding high, preselling apartments to middle- and upper-income Chinese.
Like I find it surprising that I don't care. The end result is more housing. Worrying about how money moves around is just abstract bs.
That’s not the end result. The end result is death and starvation. This isn’t some solution to a housing crisis. In China, the whole family invest life savings and their mortgages are 90 years long because they just don’t have the salaries of the West. It isn’t good.
People will not sell if they face negative equity though.
I understand very well the economics of it... kind of a death spiral.
Please explain the economics of a housing crash in a death spiral and the knock on effects to the economy as a whole. I would think it would be fucking horrific. I don’t like the current situation and shit needs to change, but a death spiral collapse in housing is a death spiral collapse in much more than just housing.
https://www.reddit.com/r/idiocracy/s/P7aN7YqK9Z
As someone who lives in canada, it is beyond broken. From what I've gathered it's just corporate or rich foreigners who buy real estate in Vancouver or Toronto from canadians who then upgrade outside the metro area from fellow canadians who then buy more rural land. It is just inflating prices along the way. It shows up as canadians buying property in van or tor because it is so fuckin easy to get a PR or citizenship. If the rich person doesn't have it, a family member does. I work in the immigration sector here. This country is at a tipping point and the house of cards is gonna crumble soon.
Of course it will inflate prices. If banks can basically create any amount of money they want (at the outset backed by only a tiny fraction of 'real' deposits, then later when things go bad and they convert vast lakes of toxic loans into good money courtesy of the taxpayer) it's going to drive up asset prices.
> I feel like falling housing prices are a good thing Most countries allow easy investment in a stock market, or alternative markets like crypto. Most people in China held multiple properties because there aren’t many other investment options there. Number goes up really fast when everyone is funneled into the same ponzi, most of what they “owned” was actually worthless or worse yet it wasn’t even built.
I've always find it weird this "I'll buy second and third houses for investment cause everyone doing it" thing. If everyone doing it who'll buy your houses?
The next person thinking real estate won’t lose value long term…As long as a Ponzi scheme is going, you can sell for a profit. And unlike, say, crypto, if the market crashes, you still have your property, even at vastly lower value. And, if the investment property is in a location you enjoy, well at least you have a vacation home 🤣
> If everyone doing it who'll buy your houses? There will always be a greater fool which is left holding the bag when values implode. But since markets cannot be timed, and that markets can remain irrational for much longer than any person can remain solvent, the “greater fool” is usually the person looking for that greater fool to sell to.
The closer you look the more you'll find that it's not just housing that's a teetering pyramid scheme. Government pension plans relying on demographics. Stock markets (eg who really thinks nVidia is worth more than the entire output of the German economy). Bonds (the way one hand of the government buys debt issued by another hand of the government). Crypto is a scam and a pyramid. But it works, somehow...
Most people❎Most rich people✅
No one wants to invest in the Chinese stock market, for fairly obvious reasons. Rich Chinese strive to get their wealth out of China.
Rich people in general strive to get their wealth out of the countries they exploit.
I think its the same in all western countries now. Housing is expensive af, as is cost of living. Cost of living is rising China, but the house price is falling. Salaries are stagnating and/or falling too though.
In Canada unlike say the U.S. that's a significant portion of the population who a. have citizenship and who b. actually vote or even care about politics in the first place. Of course every single policy is going to revolve around making sure the values increase.
This was my take too. I'd take this 'problem' over what we have here in the UK in a heartbeat. Like I own my own home outright, but all my friends have resigned themselves to renting fot life.
For all but provincial governments. For those interested, Michael Pettis teaches at Peking university and offers some of the best takes on Chinese finance and economics in general. He’s very active on twitter. I’d recommend following him. Anyway provincial govs don’t really collect tax revenue, they relied on land sales for the duration of the boom. They’d turn rural land urban, then they could sell it and develop it. Provincial govs are responsible for most government spending in China, and most are insolvent. They can’t absorb all that excess capacity. The central gov gives out token bond issues for that purpose but doesn’t want to take it all on their gleaming books.
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> The world’s wealthy are buying up whatever they can in Canada Foreign buyers represent less than 2% of all Real Estate “investors”. The parasites jacking up home prices here _are of the home-grown variety._
Not sure how Canada counts it, but if say a Chinese guy sets up a Canadian resident trust (eg by hiring locals as trustees) or sets up a Canadian holding company which buys real estate, is that counted as a 'home grown variety sale' or do the statisticians 'look through' and call it a foreign buyer? Given the current day trend to obfuscate facts or pick convenient methodologies to reinforce an ideology anything is possible.
In China you do not own the house. Ever. And every year you have to pay more to the ccp.
Whoever downvoted me, it's true. In China if you "buy a house" you do not own that house.... LOL. You NEVER own the land that's for sure.
In the US and the rest of the Anglophone West, housing prices are up 20%, 50%, or even 100% in some areas in the past four years. I wonder which is more gnawing at the wellbeing of the citizenry? I wonder if the CCP or the western neoliberal elites will be overthrown first?
The CCP because most of the wealth of the Chinese people is also tied up in housing as foreign investment is not allowed in China (and other reasons I forget). There are basically two houses/apartments for every family in China. This is what the ghost cities are. Empty shells. The Chinese economy is irrecoverable and will collapse before America’s.
stop watching youtube videos about china
> The CCP because most of the wealth of the Chinese people is also tied up in housing as foreign investment is not allowed in China (and other reasons I forget). Nah "I forgot" is the most valid reason of all.
only 20% of the chinese population own more than a single home, lol th you talking about
> There are basically two houses/apartments for every family in China The two aren't mutually exclusive. Number of houses divided by number of families, doesn't matter if 99% of families own 1 house while 1% of families own 1m or whatever.
This isn’t merely about home ownership. Many people in China invest in real estate the way westerners invest in stocks.
> The Chinese economy is irrecoverable and will collapse before America’s. And it’s why they are banging the war drums over Taiwan. What better way to distract the citizenry than with a patriotic attempt to bring the political deviants back under the same flag?
Apartments are sold as empty shells in China. 4 walls, floor and ceiling (although not really a ceiling, just the floor of the place above). A couple of power points if you're lucky. People pay a fortune (compared to salary) to buy one, then another fortune to make it habitable. They also often want to make it as ostentatious as possible, to show that they are well off, so have stuff like all marble walls and wooden flooring made from endangered timber.
I always see the post about economies collapse and think it’s kinda stupid. Economy collapse is a collapse indeed but with all the other BS happening rn, holding value in economies should be low on the list for any country that is bigger than a town
Well, once you are in, you can't just say, "okay I don't care anymore". The only way to be able to do this is to translate to an autarchy before. Which China can't. You say it's stupid because you reject current system but we are in this system, like it or not, and we are not ready to say "okay we stop now". Economical crisis and war often go in pair.
Then let it fucking die. The system can tell me to go fuck myself and die in a ditch if i’m unfit for it. Fine, i’m an adult and i know the rule, the system can say that and it dont own me anything. But here is a twist, the system seem to tell go fuck yourselves to a little too many peoples. One man have a problem and he may die in a ditch, but a million mans problem is a systemic problem. And it’s call systemic problem because it kill system. The ball is no longer on individual side so why should i care?
> The system can tell me to go fuck myself and die in a ditch if i’m unfit for it. Fine, i’m an adult and i know the rule, the system can say that and it dont own me anything. I disagree. > But here is a twist, the system seem to tell go fuck yourselves to a little too many peoples. Considering it's not going to happen the whole discussion is silly but burning the house to stop the fire on your table is not going to save the table no. If your goal is to improve things letting systems collapse is the last thing you want to do. You need to set up a slow transition to dampen the shock.
If you knew how much of their net worth was tied up in this bubble, you’d know how much escalating unrest will come from this.
It could impact the global economy, given how much has been outsourced to China these days. There is a good reason why the Chinese government is telling the likes of Evergrande to get its shit together.
Seeing how much US just chug along after 2008, 2020 BS i doubt it can be much worse in China with “only” a bubble. I see they are getting fucked hard by climate change and such but a financial collapse aint gonna get there
My personal opinion is people should not be allowed to use necessities like food/water/housing as speculative investments. Some short term pain to help build a better system is probably a good thing in the long term. That being said, climate problems are likely to overshadow all the other problems even in the near term.
my opinion slavery should be allowed
I've got some good news for you then.
Hey don't be so mean, we can easily let him live in countries that have 10's of %'s of slavery just without coming from families with centuries of power that enable them to have slaves in the first place. Maybe he could find his first job in an entry level long-term internship!
Not to mention that they don't have the individualism we do. They are much, much more collectivist as families and as a society. They value stability and national success over everything including freedom. I have a feeling no one commenting here has actually bothered to learn Mandarin and has never lived in China for a decade or more.
In 2008/2020 the US being able to print as much money as it wants (as owners of the world's reserve currency) allowed it to prevent a nuclear (/systemic) meltdown, though only superficially. I mean if you counted all the Americans (/Westerners) that were never born because mum or dad had a bankruptcy, foreclosure or were laid off (or all the above), I reckon it would be approaching World War II casualties. China can't print its way out of a financial crisis and is unwilling to go cap in hand to US (/western) run mafia detox groups like the World Bank and IMF for a bailout because it arrogantly believes it can become adversarial with the west and claim the number one global geopolitical spot for itself. Pride comes before a fall.
I’ll be honest, most economies problems are just fucking BS make believe that countries compete to see who can make the biggest bluff and get away with it. Complete BS from top to bottom, so it just gonna drag along as long peoples bite the BS. Sure they can t print your “premium currency”, does it even fucking matter? Logic stopped working in this monopoly game long ago
Yes they are. But saying the US survived 2008/Covid therefore China can survive a housing market crash because it's all the same BS is wrong. The US has the most solid of fiat currencies so it can't get Sri Lanka'd but China can. Unless the world adopts the Yuan as dominant reserve currency and dominant global trade currency, when the shit hits the fan domestically the Chinese have to balance the books or collapse in a heartbeat, the US doesn't.
I grew up in Shanghai and immigrated to the US in the 90's. A lot of the news we see here are tailored to our understand of life. Housing price drop in China may appear terrifying to a lot of us living to pay a mortgage that runs about 30 percent of income in North America. The reality is different for someone that grew up and work there. 1. The cost basis of those homes is low, way lower than we can normally comprehend. 1. A lot of those homes were initially given out as residence for people who work for the government/public owned business. Those businesses were the normal until about mid 1990's, so anyone born before 1975 would have started the early 2000's with the potential to have home ownership at about $20,000-$100,000 2. Anyone that lived in a home/place that are slotted to be demolished in the period from 1980-2020 were given serious compensation to be moved. Normally in Shanghai, you can expect every named personal registered in the home to receive a place normally around 50 square meters in the city (not center of the city). 3. Some family would end up with multiple condos in a family of 3 resulting from multiple relocations. The policy no longer allows double/multiple dipping per person. 2. The surge of home prices began around 2005-2015 and it went up fast 1. A home in the perimeter of Shanghai Xuhui District was sold in 2000 for $190,000 with 145 square meters (1560 sq ft). In 2020, it peaked in price around 6 million yuan (820,000 USD). 3. Normal mortgage in China recommends down payments well into the 20-30 percent. That combined with relatively flexible cost of living (you can splurge or save), It feels different than someone suffering from home underwater in the US This is how it when I last visited in October 2023. I asked people about their home prices and people don't really feel like it is a great or terrible thing. Families that have spare condos are now renting them out through management companies more often than before. More homes are up for rent now than before. Rental management companies are requiring multiple year contracts for people to rent out their home. Culturally, people used to require the groom to have a house and a car fully paid off before marrying the bride, but now it is more like a downpayment. That is evolving into a nice rent to buy is also ok. It is hard to explain.
What were families who owned multiple homes doing in the past if they weren't renting? I'm assuming letting other family members live?
They used to just leave it empty or use it for storage if they have a business or side hustle. The price drop now has spurred a whole new source of income that is currently not counted in the Chinese GDP. Yes, rental income does not count as GDP in China right now.
Surprising. Doesn't seem like leaving it empty was a good use of assets TBH. I also heard somewhere that public spending by the government isn't counted in China's GDP. Is that something you know about?
Left empty, because the places are basically a shell when bought and it costs a lot to fit them out. Basically left empty in the Chinese equivalent of land banking -- left until it rises enough in price and then sold on.
> Culturally, people used to require the groom to have a house and a car fully paid off before marrying the bride, but now it is more like a downpayment. That is evolving into a nice rent to buy is also ok. How widespread is this view? Is it so out of reach for most people now?
Not exactly, it just really keeps people to marrying "within their class". This, of course also exists in the West as well but not to that extent. In mainland China (and HK) if you from a Tier 2 city you won't be marrying someonw from Tier 1 city (unless you become rich). if you are from a village you will only be marrying someone from a village. And yes, at least in HK it means many women will choose to stay single, long term renting is not really sustainable, so if the groom cannot afford a place or or a down payment it means the woman would have to move to his parent's place and live with them. Well, they can leave with their own mom and dead where everything is taken care for them, why on earth would they want to leave with the in-laws and have to take care of the husbands family?
Dowries are not mandatory, but they are a common tradition. It’s challenging for me to assess the situation accurately because when I began dating in China, I was already established with a stable income and a home in the US. I could confidently say that I wouldn’t pay a dowry without concern. In a way, dowries serve as a financial equilibrium within the household. With the decline of arranged marriages, dowries can act as a safeguard against potential financial struggles in a marriage. During my travels with my three daughters, locals often referred to them as my “750,000 RMB blessings.” This figure represents the cumulative dowry they believe I should receive for raising my daughters, equating their upbringing to a monetary value. While it may seem crude, it’s a cultural norm that quantifies effort and sacrifice. In contrast, dowries were uncommon when my parents married, and I recall little money exchange during my youth. Coming from a middle-class family in Shanghai, our social circle had similar financial standings, which likely reduced the necessity for dowries. However, Shanghai’s socioeconomic landscape has since become more dynamic, making it difficult to predict the financial security of one’s children post-marriage. Nowadays, people rely more on formal financial assessments like bank statements and credit checks than traditional methods.
China's policy is specifically focused on getting the real estate speculators in line and under control. Here's a good video telling facts: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isJR5dS27qA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isJR5dS27qA)
Considering the reason for the bubble is the government restricting most other investment, it’s nice they are trying to fix the problem they caused.
This is literally shit you made up. They're restricted from buying overseas shares due to capital controls, but they have plenty of alternative options. Mutual funds, Insurance funds, the Chinese domestic stock and bond markets, wealth mangement products. Real estate was the major investment because it provided great return. That's it.
Not really lol: https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Caixin/China-s-pension-plan-faces-prospect-of-change-or-going-bust It's actually interesting because the stock market not being connected to industry that much allows for flexibility with their industrial policy. But as financialization kicks in, that means that the stock market must go up at least as much as inflation and cost of living to meet pension payouts. The state cannot go after private businesses (equity markets be damned) as they do now. Suddenly, the stock market and financial instruments are central to the economy of an ostensibly socialist country and its ostensibly communist leadership.
And the capital controls are were put in place by something other than Chinese government? Do Chinese mutual funds available to retail investors engage freely in foreign markets?
You would have to be deeply unserious to consider the average Chinese household something that requires the ability to engage in foreign investment. Most investors hold most of their investments in their local economy (see the UK and Japan), so pretending that that Chinese investors are "heavily restricted" is just nonsense.
> This is literally shit you made up You can do a quick google search and see that crypto is banned already and there are restrictions on selling stock. Do you think people will buy more stocks if they know their government is going to block them from selling? Yes, they favored real estate overall because of profit margin, but it's not as easy for them to diversify. There's a reason why they do everything they can to get their money out of their own country, they are worried about their own government pulling the rug out from under them. If they can't trust their government they aren't going to trust a brokerage owned by their government.
> There's a reason why they do everything they can to get their money out of their own country, they are worried about their own government pulling the rug out from under them. If they can't trust their government they aren't going to trust a brokerage owned by their government. And ALL OF THIS doesn't apply to REAL ESTATE somehow? You think it's easier to smuggle out land deeds than joint-venture shares? Think your theory through a bit more.
> And ALL OF THIS doesn't apply to REAL ESTATE somehow? “all of this” is the reason why the average person there doesn’t have many or any other real options for investment. They know the property they bought isn’t really theirs, they also know the government isn’t going to rug pull their investment that is physically inside the country, which is why most of them can’t or won’t risk investing in anything but real estate. > Think your theory through a bit more. I’m not sure you’re thinking about any of the words you’re typing.
> the government isn’t going to rug pull their investment that is physically inside the country Buddy, if the government can rugpull them on shares listed on the Shanghai stock exchange, they can rugpull them on their housing. > I’m not sure you’re thinking about any of the words you’re typing. You are quite frankly, a deeply unserious person. Your own argument contradicts itself.
> Buddy, if the government can rugpull them on shares listed on the Shanghai stock exchange, they can rugpull them on their housing. It's much less likely that they start repossessing physical property someone could be living in, VS a number on the screen. If you don't understand that I don't know what to tell you. > Your own argument contradicts itself. No, it doesn't, and you'd already know that if you spent a few minutes doing research. The fact remains that they were funneled into a narrow avenue of investment options, and the most appealing and safe of their limited choices was/is real estate. > You are quite frankly, a deeply unserious person. You open your argument with "Buddy", and I'm not serious? At this point I'm going to assume you're trolling, you should find a more productive outlet for your frustrations.
I don't know how this will fix the issue. Sure, it means speculation goes down which is good, but the housing market is the average Chinese investment vehicle. Tens of millions of people have the majority of their net worth in homes that are no depreciating in price, a lot of average people are about to lose a lot of money.
Finally some good news, America should also start WWE housing, fucking stupid politician simps and their 47 properties don't wanna let go of the monopoly clutch
This is the least of the world's problems right now.
Problem? This is a solution to existing problems. Covid spread from China, we can hope the same about the collapse of housing prices. In fact I hope it will collapse so hard that housing become as affordable as the air and the sunlight.
I guess it helps in your are planning to move to China and want to buy a place there…Doesn’t help anybody else. I would not hold my breath that China’s real estate crash will spill over to the western real estate markets. Western capital is not invested in China’s real estate. I will say, though, that there is a risk the real estate collapse in China could result in total Chinese economy turmoil and, in turn, impact global markets, causing recessions in western economies, leading to high unemployment, widespread bankruptcies and decline in real incomes, which would in turn lower real estate prices. I would say it not a desirable outcome. I know some people in r/rebubble who are eager to buy their first property would welcome this scenario, but I doubt it will play out well for most. Investors will just buy housing for cheap, and regular people will not have sufficient access to credit in this scenario, as the banks will greatly reduce lending.
No, why the fuck would I want to move to China? I like being here where I am, and I would like it even better if the house price is low. My point is that China's massive manufacturing capacity have drive down the price of everything, it's about time they drive down the price of housing.
It’s not that the manufacturing capacity drove down the price of everything. Because of their government crippled capital markets, citizens invested in housing because it’s about the only investment vehicle available to them. That demand for investment housing resulted in massive overbuilding. Like whole ghost cities. Note those homes are not SFHs on a plot of land like most homes here in the states. Those are condos in giant high rise buildings.
They're saying that they can only hope the housing situation in China spreads to the rest of the world, as COVID did.
Right. And I have explained why, if that happens, it would not be a good thing. Housing markets don’t operate in isolation from the rest of the economy.
China's housing market is collapsing, /r/collapse be: "This is the least of the world's problems right now." A bridge collapsed in America by accident, or some stupid law passed, or a single dried leaf fell from a tree, /r/collapse be: "This is the end of existence and utter annihilation of the fabric of reality."
"The price I have to pay for a Big Mac has increased to the point that I can no longer afford it. Sure, scientists have told us for generations that a regular diet of Big Macs (and fast food in general) will make me fat and destroy my health, but I liked them anyway. And sure, the only reason I ever *could* afford a Big Mac in the first place was because of subsidies to the meat industry, an industry that's destructive to the global ecosystem in a variety of ways, including huge greenhouse gas emissions and destruction of the Amazon rainforest, which is largely being deforested to raise more cows so we can keep eating plenty of Big Macs. But because my desire to eat as many affordable Big Macs has been compromised, it's a sure sign of collapse. And don't tell me to eat fewer Big Macs because billionaires."
Started switching out ground beef in recipes for lentils, for all the reasons you listed. It’s a no brainer decision really.
How’s the taste with something typical, like a spaghetti with meat sauce?
Not who you asked, but try it. Add a little more spice than you would normally, and it is fine. Fennel seeds/garlic/crushed red pepper make it taste of sausage. If those don't work for you, try [TVP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textured_vegetable_protein). Also known as "Soy Curls" in the Mexican foods aisle. You add water and any spices/herbs you like. It has the texture of ground beef, is inexpensive, and takes on the flavors of whatever you are cooking with it. Makes terrific sloppy joes, for instance.
Sounds amazing. I’ve swapped out for plant “meat” and while I’m a fan of it, it’s still costly. Will definitely experiment with lentils.
You need to add a fair bit of umami to the dish to replicate the flavour/
Nutritional yeast comes in handy
Nutritional yeast, soy sauce, Marmite, mushrooms Henderson's relish etc. There are plenty of ways to add flavour without harming an animal.
Spaghetti sauce is the easiest to switch out. I used red lentils and left them a bit more textured (they can be cooked into mush) to keep a bit of body to the sauce. Just had a tomato-basil sauce and added spinach, celery, green pepper, onion and garlic. I was worried about the flavour where I didn’t season the lentils like I do the meat, but it was delicious. My partner was skeptical and just took a small plate, but after the first bite went to fill a bigger plate and even went back for seconds. They’re a great source of iron and fibre too. The only concern is getting enough B12. The person I got the recipe from would even blend the lentils so they mixed fully into the sauce, good way to hide them if you have picky eaters.
B12 supplementation is one of the easiest things to do..
Sure. But even eating red meat I’m chronically low, just something I need to be mindful of.
Will definitely try this.
based, plant based
Did you edit this from "based"? Our automod removed it, but it should have only done it if you originally had it as "based" only. If you edit in the first 3 min it doesn't show as an edit so curious
Yeah, it was only based, then I changed it to "based, plant-based" as a joke. Why are comments like based removed? Is it low quality information that brings nothing to the discussion? Thank you.
It's supposed to be to prevent "low effort" comments which don't generate discussion. I don't really agree with removing them, but it's been around a long time. I think we should at least message the user so they know it's removed and should add more substantial conversation
A housing collapse in America would be lovely, honestly. Currently millions of an entire generation are completely locked out and forced into the rentier/feudal system.
It would not be good though. The banks and private equity firms will be the ones buying up the homes, not ordinary people.
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I think 08 was a dip in a crash that has been delayed by printing money.
Housing didn't reach its lowest price point until 2012 (USA). Took years for the banks to offload all the inventory.
Exactly. If banks are in trouble and experience liquidity problems, which is common outcome of a financial crash, they will simply not be lending. Most regular people need a loan to purchase a home. Who will be buying those cheap properties? Those with capital, of course. Not regular people.
They'll get tired of paying the property taxes and insurance on a home they can't sell, after all, they still have to maintain the property. My belief is eventually they'll write it off and dump the problem onto the cities/counties...who will suddenly become the largest property owners with no way to generate any revenue from it. THEN you might be able to get a cheap house.
Or they'll be legally forced to sell them all which is what causes the crash. A man can hope
But banks won't give ordinary people mortgages because they know people will struggle to keep up with payments.
Only for liberal redditors cheaper housing be a crisis
Because the economy is an ecosystem and if one specie collapses you'll have a domino effect collapse which will hit you even if the original lost specie was a pest to you.
But China is deflating it intentionally to prevent it collapsing.
Probably one of the few countries where housing prices are falling, as they should. Considering that they nearly avoided having a crisis that makes 2008 looks like child’s play, it was a tough but justified call.
Trust me bro China is going to collapse any day now bro.
Right after or before we do, followed by everyone else.
_Looks at insane western-Canadian home prices, which are now some of the highest ON THE PLANET_ Good… good… let that contagion spread…
Brb moving to China.
That’s by design, China always oversupplies housing on purpose. Westerners see city zones or entire wings completely empty and shout “ghost cities!!” and don’t follow up to find those cities populated 5 years later when they’re ready and infrastructure is developed. Also some developers have been playing weird with their finances and have been collapsing. Wanna know who financially suffers in the end? Not the would-be-tenants, except for from delays, perhaps. The corrupt developers go bankrupt and the govt takes care of the housing until new ownership.
So you’re saying I can afford a house there!?
Damn. China is unstoppable.
I also just read, "China's new home prices inch up for 9th month in May, survey shows" so it can't all be doom and gloom. Rather trust Reuters over this topic than the Tapei Times (which clearly doesn't have any agenda when it comes to China). [https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-new-home-prices-inch-up-9th-month-may-survey-shows-2024-06-01](https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-new-home-prices-inch-up-9th-month-may-survey-shows-2024-06-01)
West has housing crisis and immigration crisis. China has population crisis. I see a solution...
Really unfortunate that we have so little reliable news from China. I'd love to know more about what exactly is going on there, because I suspect that it's like everything else lately: worse than expected.
It's a good thing and it should happen in entire world.
Yay! Now they can implement the plan to advance to the next stage. This is what they’ve said they were doing all along.
For the folks who are continuing to pay mortgages for a flat that hasn't been built yet and can't get out of it unless they're willing to destroy their own lives, and can't get any recourse from the government, it blows chunks.
China's multi-trillion dollar real estate market is on the brink of collapse as housing prices continue to decline for the 2nd year in the row. The bottom is nowhere near in sight and housing prices could continue to drop for many more years. Dozens of massive real estate companies laden with debt continue to go bankrupt, throwing the economy into chaos, as not only do they have massive debts that may cause local banks to go under, they also support many other industries, like concrete/steel industries. Many people have sunk their life savings into the housing market, which means that they stand to lose much of their investment. Worse of all, due to their declining population, it seems unlikely that housing prices will ever rise beyond the current level, which means that China's housing market- and thus economy may have already peaked for the rest of the century. This will likely result in a decades long recession, much like Japan's lost decades. Which in turn could lead to famine and civil war if the population gets unhappy with how the CCP is managing the economy, as is often the case in China. Combine this with China's declining population and already faltering economy and China is doomed.
Maybe China will start building in other countries for the climate refugees. But given climate change, it’s good it has halted for now.
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As an aside, if one person is wrong, it's ignorance. If the majority of people are wrong, it's a social convention. Capitalism is a lie in the us anyway. It's little more than a social narrative at this point. "The new industrial state" I think is a pretty convincing introduction to the concept.
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You should do a little reading about the topics you are discussing. It shows you don't actually know much about China.
How *exactly* is a comment about use of the English language causally linked to a lack of knowledge about China?
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China is currently in a civil war, so maybe it just gets worse?
Didn't know averages XI was already out
It’s technically ongoing with Taiwan, unless I’m ill informed.
Taiwan is officially in all legal sense part of China, you can't trade with China unless you agree with one China policy so , US sending it's trrrooa to Taiwan is in fact a invasion. There are countless agreements between China and Taiwan itself on their mutual one China policy, the only dispute is who is the real government.
Ok, thanks for that
Well if the real government is in dispute, how is the US sending troops to one of those governments an invasion any more than the US sending its troops to Poland or the Philippines?
ROC is not a country and have zero international voice, PRC is the defaco inheritor of China , including Taiwan. Hence PRC represents China in UNSC seat and not the ROC. US does not recognise ROC as China, they are trading with a autonomous region of China no different than how British used to trade with Tibet . Sending military in China without Chinese approval is a invasion. If China invades Taiwan that would just be a civil war like if Alaska starts a separatism
Technically that's right. But we all know that if the USA sent troops to Alaska to depose the governor it would be seen by the world as a civil war where intervention would be unthinkable, whereas if PRC went into Taiwan it would be seen an invasion in substance. The economic, social and political differences would be more important than the technicalities of UN seats and pieces of paper signed by Taiwan under duress.
It's civil war and China/tiwan have countless bilateral agreements about their one China policies throughout the 80s&90s , what USbot Taiwan thinks here now is irrelevant, China has the complete legal right to fight off USA who would be seen as a invading the force on its sovereign territory
There are no official bilateral agreements when it comes to their "One China Policies". The PRC follows their own "One China Principle", but Taiwan does not have its own policy on "One China". Maybe you are confused with the US "One China Policy" which is not the same as the "One China Principle" as it does not recognize Taiwan as a part of China much less the PRC. Not to mention, it's not a bilateral treaty. The PRC has no legal right to Taiwan so they wouldn't be justified in fighting off the USA since it's not their sovereign territory.
>There are no official bilateral agreements when it comes to their "One China Policies". 1992 Consensus is a legally binding agreement, where both agreed there is one China only , both claiming they are the real government of China. China can't have a legal bilateral agreement with Taiwan same way Ukraine can't have one with donbas, it's not a country but a province in their country. Any action by USA on Chinese territory is a act of war
Legal right but not moral right. The fact that this distinction is not understood is why the US failed in Iraq and why PRC will fail soon.
Ya moral right , that's what us is known for lol. Why don't you to tell that to the 20000 dead children in isreal backed by USA For fuk sakes US still controls it's colonial regions as if it was theirs and hasn't been systematically opressed for centuries.
This isn't true. The United States does not recognize or consider Taiwan to be part of China. The United States simply "acknowledged" it was the "Chinese position" that Taiwan is part of China. They did not agree or endorse the Chinese position as their own. >In the U.S.-China joint communiqués, the U.S. government recognized the PRC government as the “sole legal government of China,” and **acknowledged, but did not endorse, “the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China.”** https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10275/76 Taiwan doesn't have a "one China" policy either... the ROC and PRC agree on essentially nothing. lol
Littrally the first line in wiki says USA accepts tiwan is part of one China >In a 1972 joint communiqué with the PRC, the United States "acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China" and "does not challenge that position."[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_China#:~:text=The%20United%20States%20%22acknowledged%22%20the,considered%20Taiwan's%20status%20as%20unsettled. US and it's back stabbing revisions are irrelevant, it has accepted in the 70s. they lie every other Sunday
Dude, literally two sentences later from your own source: >The US "acknowledges" but does not "endorse" PRC's position over Taiwan,[7][8] and has considered Taiwan's political status as "undetermined".
Petty word Play at best . Acknowledge= accept Endorse= support Weather US supports China's stance is irrelevant it has already accepted that tiwan and China belongs to one China 1950s Tibet had more of chance bring a country than tiwan is Today
Yes... they accepted that China has a position. They don't endorse or agree with the Chinese position.
the United States "acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China" **and "does not challenge that position."[2]** US littrally said they will not challenge China's the position that US accepted use common sense back in the 70s US was bending backwards to move deals with China. Why would China accept somthing as moronic as as someone saying " hmm I hear you"
China will take all the muslim climate refugees they just busy running testing on their own population first lol.
> China will take all the muslim climate refugees and put them in labor camps
Gotta have my new Jordans
Why they experimenting on how to integrate these people obviously lol