> 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 s

> 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.