page_title: Real estate in China
section_title: Property bubble
hierarchical_section_title: Real estate in China / History / Property bubble
caption_attribution_description: Uploaded with permission of author for public domain
context_page_description: Real estate in China is developed and managed by public, private, and state-owned red chip enterprises. In the years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, the real estate sector in China was growing so rapidly that the government implemented a series of policies - including raising the required downpayment for some property purchases, and five 2007 interest rate increases - due to concerns of overheating. But after the crisis hit, these policies were quickly eliminated, and in some cases tightened. Beijing also launched a massive stimulus package to boost growth, and much of the stimulus wound up flowing into the property market and driving prices upward, resulting in investors increasingly looking abroad. By late 2014, the IMF warned that a real estate oversupply problem had arisen that threatened to cause detrimental effects to the Chinese economy, particularly in 2nd and 3rd tier cities. As of 2015, the market was experiencing low growth and the central government had eased prior measures to tighten interest rates, increase deposits and impose restrictions.
context_section_description: The Chinese property bubble was a real estate bubble in residential and/or commercial real estate in China. The phenomenon has seen average housing prices in the country triple from 2005 to 2009, possibly driven by both government policies and Chinese cultural attitudes.
  Tianjin High price-to-income and price-to-rent ratios for property and the high number of unoccupied residential and commercial units have been held up as evidence of a bubble. Critics of the bubble theory point to China's relatively conservative mortgage lending standards and trends of increasing urbanization and rising incomes as proof that property prices can remain supported.
  The Growth of the housing bubble ended in late 2011 when housing prices began to fall, following policies responding to complaints that members of the middle-class were unable to afford homes in large cities. The deflation of the property bubble is seen as one of the primary causes for China's declining economic growth in 2012.
  2011 estimates by property analysts state that there are some 64 million empty properties and apartments in China and that housing development in China is massively oversupplied and overvalued, and is a bubble waiting to burst with serious consequences in the future. The BBC cites Ordos in Inner Mongolia as the largest ghost town in China, full of empty shopping malls and apartment complexes. A large, and largely uninhabited urban real estate development has been constructed 25 km from Dongsheng District in the Kangbashi New Area. Intended to house a million people, it remains largely uninhabited. Intended to have 300,000 residents by 2010, government figures stated it had 28,000.
  In Beijing, after 2001, residential rent prices have increased by 32%. However, while the overall inflation rate in China has just risen by 16% at the same time (Huang, 2003). To avoid sinking into the economic downturn, in 2008, the Chinese government immediately altered China's monetary policy from a conservative stance to a progressive attitude by means of suddenly increasing the money supply and largely relaxing credit conditions. Under such circumstances, the main concern is whether this expansionary monetary policy has acted to simulate the property bubble(Chiang, 2016).
  Land supply has a significant impact on house price fluctuations while demand factors such as user costs, income and residential mortgage loan have greater influences.
caption: An empty corridor in the mostly vacant New South China Mall.
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