4 ms·

Even 1.4 billion people can’t fill China’s vacant homes, ex-official admits

38 points by clouddrover 3y ago

coldtea 3y ago
There's an estimation in the article that's so ridiculous, it's not even wrong: “How many vacant homes are there now? Each expert gives a very different number, with the most extreme believing the current number of vacant homes are enough for 3 billion people,” said He Keng, 81, a former deputy head of the statistics bureau." No, they don't have "vacant homes for 3 billion people". Not even close to 1/10th that. Actually, the "vacant homes" amount to "7.2 million homes, according to Reuters calculations" based on statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Those, they could fill them in a heartbeat (and will build tens of millions more in the future), filling these particular ones a matter of price, and of desirability of specific areas (which could change due to industry coming in or moving out and so on). Instead CNN went with the bullshit accout of vacant homes "enough for 3 billion people" for the headline and "message" of the story.
- clouddrover 3y ago
  To quote the article: That does not count the numerous residential projects that have already been sold but not yet completed due to cash-flow problems, or the multiple homes purchased by speculators in the last market upturn in 2016 that remain vacant, which together make up the bulk of unused space, experts estimate. Maybe give the article a slower and calmer re-read.
  - fnordpiglet 3y ago
    Yeah - the 7.2mm is only unsold homes currently on market. There are entire districts in China with empty skyscrapers empty of humans but full of highly leveraged speculators. Once upon a time I was involved in a trading business focused on mortgages and real estate debt and the analytics around Chinese property bubbles were eye watering 15 years ago, and as I understand it it’s only gotten worse. I couldn’t guess if it was in the scale quoted or not, but it was in the “OMG” scale, and this was coming off the US real estate bubble. But the article probably could have done better quantifying the unused and partially completed units better. It’s lazy reporting to quote the official stats and not the estimates, which are certainly available.
  - coldtea 3y ago
    I read that part too, and it's irrelevant. There are no "enough vacant homes to host 3 billion people" with or without those. Even considering families of 5, that would be 600 million homes, a ridiculous number.
    - clouddrover 3y ago
      No, it's even more relevant. That's lost investment that won't see a return. China has overbuilt residential property and it's a major issue.
      - FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
        Something is messed up when a country creates plenty and that's a bad thing.
        clouddrover 3y ago
        No, it's just bad economics. Supply has far exceeded demand. People took on debt to buy these properties and they will not see a return on their investment. And that will lead to financial loss and bankruptcy.
        yen223 3y ago
        Yeah, something that grates my cheese is when falling home prices is portrayed as a bad thing that should be feared!
        FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
        Example: Biden pointed to record-high home prices in his last State of the Union as a bragging point. I was more than a little annoyed by that. And that's as someone who is generally supportive of Biden. (Pretty sure Trump would have done the same. I mean, he's a real estate investor himself.)
  - pixl97 3y ago
    "Sold but not yet completed" Eh... that's not unused space, that's non existent space. What percentage of those have no actual on the ground progress, hence are total bullshit?
    - addicted 3y ago
      In the context of China’s economic crisis it’s far more relevant. The 7.2mm homes, if they don’t get occupied, can at least be used as homes by the people who own them, many of whom have put their entire life savings into these places. The homes that have been sold but not built will likely never be built and the people who have put their entire life savings and taken on debt (that they’re already paying interest on) to acquire those homes will get absolutely nothing in return.
      - pixl97 3y ago
        I don't disagree, but it gives a diffent image... think of it this way "Millions starving as a billion tons of grain goes unused" I mean people starving is bad, why aren't they doing something with all that food. But if you instead write "millions stave as a billion tons of grain never planted" gives you a much different view of the ground truth.
mensetmanusman 3y ago
Maybe when they implemented the one child policy they thought they would be immortal by now? “For every two of us there should be one of us” doesn’t seem that wise in hindsight.
- birdyrooster 3y ago
  It's because corruption is baked into the system and so they set the number at 1 assuming people will break the law
- lostlogin 3y ago
  I think you misunderstand that flavour of communism. It’s ’for every two of them, there should be one of them’. The rulers weren’t putting limits on themselves.
- ozim 3y ago
  What would you expect from people who thought killing all sparrows will save the grain?
  - expazl 3y ago
    By "people" you mean humans? You're a human, at least I suppose you are, my apologies if you're a ChatGPT bot. But assuming you are human, why did you people think killing all sparrows would save the grain? Seems arbitrary to equate all Chinese and not just equate all humans. There is no evidence to suggest stupidity is geographically constrained by concepts of nationality.
    - ozim 3y ago
      No I equate bad intention, bad incentives, bad decisions with communist party whatever country that communist party rules over. Take a moment to read the comment I posted under as a response or I'd say follow up to understand the context.
- hakfoo 3y ago
  Maybe it's not immortality, but just getting off the pyramid scheme of untenable growth. For a developing nation with a questionable future, one-child-per-family seemed a viable way to solve the problem of finite resources, particularly as a transient "we do this for N years then revert" model. I notice in the end most of the hand-wringing comes from the economic argument. It's not "Dad needs two children around to care for him in his dotage", it's "who will fill the factories" and "line won't go up without perpetually growing population." I suspect the loop can be closed with modernization and rising standards of living. If we have 50% fewer people than in 1980, but they're twice as productive, and per-person consumption doubles, aggregate demand remains flat. That can be an interesting play because it keeps demand flat on necessities -- you only need so much rice, so many apartments, so much transport capacity -- but allows for growth in the much more elastic, and less "if we stretch them til they break, our society crumbles", luxury sectors.
ikekkdcjkfke 3y ago
How much would it cost to rent a tanker from china with all the required materials, equipment and manpower to build one of these buildings.
FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
If the Chinese Communist Party really wants to score a win, it can offer a free apartment and residency to anyone from around the world who can pass certain (relatively achievable) minimum requirements (e.g., a college education or trade certification, plus kindergarten-level language skills). I've already found examples of Australians who've responded to Australia's housing crisis by moving to rural China (one opened a restaurant serving an exotic dish called "pizza", made with a wood fired oven). If China really wants to subvert the West, it just needs to show Westerners that life is better under Chinese rule. Which, if they can offer apartments, they might be able to demonstrate. We could use some competition in the government space. Without it, we can expect Western governments to remain captured by, in this case, homeowners.
- clouddrover 3y ago
  > We could use some competition in the government space. If there's one thing the Chinese Communist Party can't tolerate it's competition in the government space. They don't even tolerate a competition of ideas. Paranoid China wants the Chinese to spy on each other and most especially foreigners: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-17/xi-s-security-obsession-turns-ordinary-citizens-into-spy-hunters https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-17/xi-s-secu... It doesn't matter that it will be ineffective. It doesn't matter that a lot of innocent people will be caught up in it. From the CCP's point of view, the climate of fear it will create is useful for them to retain control. It's a dumb game to play, but apparently it's all the CCP can think to do at this point.
  - FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
    Ok, that sounds pretty awful, so let me put my post in a little more context, lest it appear that I'm just cheerleading a bad government. There's this idea that one of the reasons that US workers (and workers in the West more generally) had a relatively good standard of living during the Cold War, was that Western countries were facing competition from the Soviet Union. Would Britain have built all that social housing? Would it have created the NHS? Would America have permitted as much unionization as existed? Possibly not, if it weren't for the Soviet threat. And is it a coincidence that we had waves of privitization in the West at the same time that the Soviet Union was collapsing? So goes the thinking. Now, the reality was that the Soviet Union was a totalitarian state, and it's unlikely that you'd actually want to live there. Granted, they may have done certain things well, like putting up Khrushchevkas. But the political situation was terrible and the material quality of life was not very good. Nevertheless, maybe the existence of a competitor did spur the US and other countries to do better. (There are other more cut-and-dry examples of this, e.g., much earlier, Bismarck outflanking the Socialists in Germany with state healthcare.) And, for all the negatives of the Chinese system today, it's hard to argue that they don't build a lot very quickly. (Quality may be an issue sometimes, but I'm still impressed by a lot of what's accomplished.) So, my half-tongue-in-cheek proposal is that China use its known strengths to offer a better deal than Western governments can, not just to e.g. African nations via BRI, but also to Western and even US citizens. It's not really that I think Westerners would be wise to go there (I know full well that there must be a propaganda element to the example of the Australians that I used). It's that Western leaders seem entirely content to let lucrative problems like the housing crisis fester, and it would be fantastic if there were some credible alternative to spur action. Basically, life should be better for citizens if governments are competing for legitimacy with them.

38 points by clouddrover 3y ago

There's an estimation in the article that's so ridiculous, it's not even wrong: “How many vacant homes are there now? Each expert gives a very different number, with the most extreme believing the current number of vacant homes are enough for 3 billion people,” said He Keng, 81, a former deputy head of the statistics bureau." No, they don't have "vacant homes for 3 billion people". Not even close to 1/10th that. Actually, the "vacant homes" amount to "7.2 million homes, according to Reuters calculations" based on statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Those, they could fill them in a heartbeat (and will build tens of millions more in the future), filling these particular ones a matter of price, and of desirability of specific areas (which could change due to industry coming in or moving out and so on). Instead CNN went with the bullshit accout of vacant homes "enough for 3 billion people" for the headline and "message" of the story.

clouddrover 3y ago
To quote the article: That does not count the numerous residential projects that have already been sold but not yet completed due to cash-flow problems, or the multiple homes purchased by speculators in the last market upturn in 2016 that remain vacant, which together make up the bulk of unused space, experts estimate. Maybe give the article a slower and calmer re-read.
- fnordpiglet 3y ago
  Yeah - the 7.2mm is only unsold homes currently on market. There are entire districts in China with empty skyscrapers empty of humans but full of highly leveraged speculators. Once upon a time I was involved in a trading business focused on mortgages and real estate debt and the analytics around Chinese property bubbles were eye watering 15 years ago, and as I understand it it’s only gotten worse. I couldn’t guess if it was in the scale quoted or not, but it was in the “OMG” scale, and this was coming off the US real estate bubble. But the article probably could have done better quantifying the unused and partially completed units better. It’s lazy reporting to quote the official stats and not the estimates, which are certainly available.
- coldtea 3y ago
  I read that part too, and it's irrelevant. There are no "enough vacant homes to host 3 billion people" with or without those. Even considering families of 5, that would be 600 million homes, a ridiculous number.
  - clouddrover 3y ago
    No, it's even more relevant. That's lost investment that won't see a return. China has overbuilt residential property and it's a major issue.
    - FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
      Something is messed up when a country creates plenty and that's a bad thing.
      - clouddrover 3y ago
        No, it's just bad economics. Supply has far exceeded demand. People took on debt to buy these properties and they will not see a return on their investment. And that will lead to financial loss and bankruptcy.
      - yen223 3y ago
        Yeah, something that grates my cheese is when falling home prices is portrayed as a bad thing that should be feared!
        FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
        Example: Biden pointed to record-high home prices in his last State of the Union as a bragging point. I was more than a little annoyed by that. And that's as someone who is generally supportive of Biden. (Pretty sure Trump would have done the same. I mean, he's a real estate investor himself.)
- pixl97 3y ago
  "Sold but not yet completed" Eh... that's not unused space, that's non existent space. What percentage of those have no actual on the ground progress, hence are total bullshit?
  - addicted 3y ago
    In the context of China’s economic crisis it’s far more relevant. The 7.2mm homes, if they don’t get occupied, can at least be used as homes by the people who own them, many of whom have put their entire life savings into these places. The homes that have been sold but not built will likely never be built and the people who have put their entire life savings and taken on debt (that they’re already paying interest on) to acquire those homes will get absolutely nothing in return.
    - pixl97 3y ago
      I don't disagree, but it gives a diffent image... think of it this way "Millions starving as a billion tons of grain goes unused" I mean people starving is bad, why aren't they doing something with all that food. But if you instead write "millions stave as a billion tons of grain never planted" gives you a much different view of the ground truth.

mensetmanusman 3y ago

Maybe when they implemented the one child policy they thought they would be immortal by now? “For every two of us there should be one of us” doesn’t seem that wise in hindsight.

birdyrooster 3y ago
It's because corruption is baked into the system and so they set the number at 1 assuming people will break the law
lostlogin 3y ago
I think you misunderstand that flavour of communism. It’s ’for every two of them, there should be one of them’. The rulers weren’t putting limits on themselves.
ozim 3y ago
What would you expect from people who thought killing all sparrows will save the grain?
- expazl 3y ago
  By "people" you mean humans? You're a human, at least I suppose you are, my apologies if you're a ChatGPT bot. But assuming you are human, why did you people think killing all sparrows would save the grain? Seems arbitrary to equate all Chinese and not just equate all humans. There is no evidence to suggest stupidity is geographically constrained by concepts of nationality.
  - ozim 3y ago
    No I equate bad intention, bad incentives, bad decisions with communist party whatever country that communist party rules over. Take a moment to read the comment I posted under as a response or I'd say follow up to understand the context.
hakfoo 3y ago
Maybe it's not immortality, but just getting off the pyramid scheme of untenable growth. For a developing nation with a questionable future, one-child-per-family seemed a viable way to solve the problem of finite resources, particularly as a transient "we do this for N years then revert" model. I notice in the end most of the hand-wringing comes from the economic argument. It's not "Dad needs two children around to care for him in his dotage", it's "who will fill the factories" and "line won't go up without perpetually growing population." I suspect the loop can be closed with modernization and rising standards of living. If we have 50% fewer people than in 1980, but they're twice as productive, and per-person consumption doubles, aggregate demand remains flat. That can be an interesting play because it keeps demand flat on necessities -- you only need so much rice, so many apartments, so much transport capacity -- but allows for growth in the much more elastic, and less "if we stretch them til they break, our society crumbles", luxury sectors.

ikekkdcjkfke 3y ago

How much would it cost to rent a tanker from china with all the required materials, equipment and manpower to build one of these buildings.

FooBarBizBazz 3y ago

If the Chinese Communist Party really wants to score a win, it can offer a free apartment and residency to anyone from around the world who can pass certain (relatively achievable) minimum requirements (e.g., a college education or trade certification, plus kindergarten-level language skills). I've already found examples of Australians who've responded to Australia's housing crisis by moving to rural China (one opened a restaurant serving an exotic dish called "pizza", made with a wood fired oven). If China really wants to subvert the West, it just needs to show Westerners that life is better under Chinese rule. Which, if they can offer apartments, they might be able to demonstrate. We could use some competition in the government space. Without it, we can expect Western governments to remain captured by, in this case, homeowners.

clouddrover 3y ago
> We could use some competition in the government space. If there's one thing the Chinese Communist Party can't tolerate it's competition in the government space. They don't even tolerate a competition of ideas. Paranoid China wants the Chinese to spy on each other and most especially foreigners: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-17/xi-s-security-obsession-turns-ordinary-citizens-into-spy-hunters https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-17/xi-s-secu... It doesn't matter that it will be ineffective. It doesn't matter that a lot of innocent people will be caught up in it. From the CCP's point of view, the climate of fear it will create is useful for them to retain control. It's a dumb game to play, but apparently it's all the CCP can think to do at this point.
- FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
  Ok, that sounds pretty awful, so let me put my post in a little more context, lest it appear that I'm just cheerleading a bad government. There's this idea that one of the reasons that US workers (and workers in the West more generally) had a relatively good standard of living during the Cold War, was that Western countries were facing competition from the Soviet Union. Would Britain have built all that social housing? Would it have created the NHS? Would America have permitted as much unionization as existed? Possibly not, if it weren't for the Soviet threat. And is it a coincidence that we had waves of privitization in the West at the same time that the Soviet Union was collapsing? So goes the thinking. Now, the reality was that the Soviet Union was a totalitarian state, and it's unlikely that you'd actually want to live there. Granted, they may have done certain things well, like putting up Khrushchevkas. But the political situation was terrible and the material quality of life was not very good. Nevertheless, maybe the existence of a competitor did spur the US and other countries to do better. (There are other more cut-and-dry examples of this, e.g., much earlier, Bismarck outflanking the Socialists in Germany with state healthcare.) And, for all the negatives of the Chinese system today, it's hard to argue that they don't build a lot very quickly. (Quality may be an issue sometimes, but I'm still impressed by a lot of what's accomplished.) So, my half-tongue-in-cheek proposal is that China use its known strengths to offer a better deal than Western governments can, not just to e.g. African nations via BRI, but also to Western and even US citizens. It's not really that I think Westerners would be wise to go there (I know full well that there must be a propaganda element to the example of the Australians that I used). It's that Western leaders seem entirely content to let lucrative problems like the housing crisis fester, and it would be fantastic if there were some credible alternative to spur action. Basically, life should be better for citizens if governments are competing for legitimacy with them.