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Oh Holy Jesus... That, what, 2km of street there? I paused the video, there's ~39 stories per building (40 is unlikely, as the number 4 is considered unlucky),

Oh Holy Jesus... That, what, 2km of street there? I paused the video, there's ~39 stories per building (40 is unlikely, as the number 4 is considered unlucky), assuming 2 windows per condo, that's ~10 condos per floor, so ~400 condos per building. From 8:15 to 10:13, there are 12 towers on the left side of the street. Later at 13:00 they mention that this condo supply could house ~1M people! And it hasn't been filled for nearly 5 years! Per other commentators, such condos are ~$200k each (Note: I've no idea on the actual prices here). So assuming these numbers, there's ~$960,000,000 of simply empty condos, just on the left side of that one street! Even if I'm high by a factor of 100 (totally possible), that's ~$10M per linear km of totally empty condos. The rows of towers go about 3 deep. At about 11:15, you can see the that entire horizon is filled with these empty towers (so claimed by the narrators). So, that's what, roughly $1B to $10M per square km of totally empty condos, so somewhere between $1000 and $10 per square meter of empty real-estate?! Look, I'm not an economist, but there is just something deeply, deeply unsettling going on here. Guys, Chinese real-estate can't not implode. And badly.

avinium 8y ago
> Guys, Chinese real-estate can't not implode. And badly. Having lived in China for almost 5 years (and working in property), I too held this view. The whole system defies logic. There is one key difference from the West - capital controls. If you literally are not allowed to put your money elsewhere except for a bank of risky stock market/financial products, why not put it into real estate? An apartment is unlikely to disappear overnight into thin air (though it could certainly collapse or catch fire). Everyone ends up riding the same merry-go-round - in a closed economy, the money has to go somewhere, so property ends becoming a marker or store of value (I.e. a currency) rather than an asset in and of itself. At this point in time, it’s on par with gold.
- rando444 8y ago
  Except for instead of having something that has held value for thousands of years, you have an unfinished concrete box.

avinium 8y ago

> Guys, Chinese real-estate can't not implode. And badly. Having lived in China for almost 5 years (and working in property), I too held this view. The whole system defies logic. There is one key difference from the West - capital controls. If you literally are not allowed to put your money elsewhere except for a bank of risky stock market/financial products, why not put it into real estate? An apartment is unlikely to disappear overnight into thin air (though it could certainly collapse or catch fire). Everyone ends up riding the same merry-go-round - in a closed economy, the money has to go somewhere, so property ends becoming a marker or store of value (I.e. a currency) rather than an asset in and of itself. At this point in time, it’s on par with gold.

rando444 8y ago
Except for instead of having something that has held value for thousands of years, you have an unfinished concrete box.