Good. The way it should be. Housing is not wealth storage, it's a place to live.
Let's hope this fall spreads out of China.
this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2026
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The kiwis in New Zealand have seen the prices fall by a third iirc
15% lower than it's all time 2022 peak right now
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That does assume the Chinese housing market is the same as in many western countries though. But if so, bring it on.
It fits somewhat with American sunbelt cities where there is significant growth and large developers building new houses. One issue which is common across borders is that real estate was a common way for people to invest their retirement savings; wiping out a lot of the savings of people near or at retirement isn't healthy. One issue that is more local to China is that Chinese provinces and municipalities have little ability to raise taxes, so they've been using development as a way to raise money; a lot of these governments have a lot of debt and few good ways to pay it back.
It's great for people who want to buy a house, great for ultra rich that want to buy out more property, but absolutely fucking people who just bought a house not too long ago.
If you just bought (assuming standard 30 yr mortgage), all you have to do is hold through it. Refinance if that becomes favorable.
The only losers are those who are free and clear or toward the end of their mortgage AND looking to utilize the equity they built up, OR anyone looking to sell. The solution is time, which can kinda suck, but it's vastly preferable to not having a place to live.
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why? yiu bought a home to live in right ? you can still live in it. thet they're now cheaper for other folks who couldn't afford a home before, is a good thing.
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The Chinese government made this happen to help the lower classes with home ownership. So, maybe we could use our unique rights structure to convince those with the levers here, to pull them.
There was another thing the Chinese did to landlords that we could try too
Yes, let's.
Sounds great, normalisation is required for many housing markets. Prices of a basic utility inflated due to speculation is the actual dangerous condition we are very comfortable with and viewed as security in many countries.
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Oooh, could we get some of that?
I'll have what they're having.
I wonder how many people on Lemmy want to move to China based on what they've heard about it on this collective network or in their own circles. How many of those people would be sorely disappointed if they did?
A lot of them come across as Ariel in Disney's The Little Mermaid. They have an incomplete understanding of China and also likely have legitimate reasons to not want to live where they are.
Tbf, I'd move to China permanently in a heartbeat, based on more than a decade of working there. If China ever lets foreigners buy property, I'll be first in line.
I wouldn't touch the US with a hundred foot pole, on the other hand.
accurate representation of an average lemmy.zip user.
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It peaked in 2021, so apparently prices have been declining for 5 years, and are still declining!!
The Chinese economy may be weird, but I don't get how prices can fall below what they were 20 years ago, when China is much richer today than they were back then? We were told for a long time China was in a huge housing bubble, but this is crazy!
This will guaranteed ruin many peoples economy for decades even for the rest of their lives. And many will be tied to their house because it's impossible to sell at a price that will clear the debt, so they can't afford to move.
In a normal market it's nice to own your own house, but a market like this, if you bought 5 years ago, it's a nightmare.
China was building housing like crazy, and companies kept the prices artificially inflated, even though that created literal ghost towns and a number of buildings had to be demolished due to safety reasons...
Now with the bubble popped, prices are resetting to market value, and since this means a new swathe of newly affordable housing, that availability drives prices down even further.
Think of it like this: you're sitting on 3 million tonnes of apples. You're selling each apple for $50. Nobody but a few idiots are buying them. Then you suddenly need the cash, and start dropping the prices - you have to go below market rates to offload all those apples to raise capital. And the raw amount of supply means you're going way under market prices, dragging other sellers with you.
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The housing market is different in China. Most home are paid entirely at sale without a loan.
You’re also not truly buying the land, because private land ownership is illegal in China. Instead, you’re buying land usage rights for a long period (usually 70 years). Then it gets returned to the state (or the local farming collective, if you’re in a rural area that is managed locally) after your lease is up.
Basically, you can own your house, (the materials used to build it, the items inside of it, etc), but not the land it is built on. So after that 70 year lease is up, you (or more likely, your descendants) will need to either move off the land or sign a new land use contract with the applicable government (either local or state level).
And there’s always a chance that the government goes “actually we need to use that land for the public interest” and they can refuse to re-sign the lease. Maybe they want to turn it into a public park, or build a railway through the area, or use it for extra farmland. The same way the US government can seize an American’s land via eminent domain, the Chinese government can revoke a land use agreement.
But having an expected time the city can have the land back do helps with planning with development, or modernize run down buildings.
It being a lease means you also can very easily plan ahead your maintenance by funding it through the sale of the land upfront, not that much difference than collecting property tax except it is actually valued based on the land not the building on top of it.
It's better if land is not owned by an estate forever.
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many will be tied to their house because it’s impossible to sell at a price that will clear the debt, so they can’t afford to move
if housing prices fall, you get less money if you sell your old house but it also requires less money to buy your new house so it cancels out and you can move just as easily or difficultly as you could when prices were high.
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Time to buy a vacation home in China?
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