• queermunist she/her
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    1 year ago

    Sounds to me like China is trying to solve both of those problems by lowering property scarcity - if this stays controlled it will make properties cheaper so people don’t need to acquire as much debt and it will shrink the real estate sector. Since this housing is built through centralized control and not a market, it should be totally under control.

    Obviously something unexpected could happen that blindsides the Party, but it looks like politics is in command and everything is proceeding as expected.

      • queermunist she/her
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        1 year ago

        There should always be a reserve supply of vacant properties to give people freedom of movement between regions and cities.

          • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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            1 year ago

            65M is what percentage of 1.4Bn? It’s about 5%.

            5% oversupply is pretty reasonable, especially given that the housing isn’t fungible and the populations are more mobile than the houses are.

          • queermunist she/her
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            1 year ago

            That doesn’t actually mean there are 65 million surplus properties. A vacant house isn’t an unnecessary house. Children move out all the time, families sometimes break up, Chinese citizens currently living overseas or in Europe return home, etc.

            I bet there’s actually math for this - I wonder if anyone has calculated the optimal amount of vacancies?

              • zephyreks@programming.dev
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                1 year ago

                Sometimes, you misspeculate. Some developers lost a whole fuck ton of money on the project, but that’s more than made up for if you can turn a profit on projects near big cities (which demand is still sky high for).

              • queermunist she/her
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                1 year ago

                I still find it hard to believe that they are making the best use of labor and materials

                Is anyone? If I have to choose between “housing shortage” and “housing surplus” I know which society I would prefer.

                  • zephyreks@programming.dev
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                    1 year ago

                    China isn’t really limited by construction resources. There’s a heavier constraint in terms of hospital staff and teachers than there is on construction resources.