China's Ghost Cities and Malls
 

I found this very interesting.

We all know that China is undergoing economic growth and breakneck speed, and recently surpassed the USA as the no.1 manufacturing country in the world. But that doesn't come without some growing pains. Some interesting insight into some of the other parts of China that people might not have known about.

Intense 64 million empty apartments!

Just when u thought tinseltown was bad.

This video is partially bias, in the sense that, most of those apartments you see sitting empty are probably used as investment properties.

According to Chinese beliefs, if an apartment has never been occupied, it's still considered new, regardless of how long it's been sitting there vacant. The value of the property drops drastically, if the apartment is occupied. Which then makes it's more difficult to flip to obtain a high ROI. Hence, most real estate investors in China leaves it vacant for that purpose.

^ of course it's biased, all reporting has a degree of 'bias' of some sort.

The average Chinese family earns $8,000 / year.
I can't even relate to how rich the China kids in Vancouver driving R8s must be back home. Probably God-like status.

Look up James Chanos if you want to reinforce you negative view on the Chinese housing market. He is pretty much the biggest China bear on Wall Street and he is not shy about it.

When I was in China a few years back - mostly up in the north - it was scary seeing these random cities popping up here and there. You'd be driving down this vacant highway, then suddenly you'd see street lights, and the highway opens up - and you see this random city.

But you know what though - these cities stay empty because there aren't any jobs. All you need is somebody to open up a factory, and all the people will pour into the city, and with them - you'll get all the shops and stuff opening up.

Chinese consumer culture is big, I think it's much bigger than it is here - but people don't make the same amount of money, so a lot of it is from cheaper markets, and more ghetto shops.

THE RENT IS TOO DAMN HIGH ! :troll:

Walked into this thread thinking it was about ghosts and hauntings from abandoned cities/malls.

history has already shown us what happens when there is a massive divide between the rich and poor. i wont be surprised if shit hits the fan in china

if everyone in Canada bought 1 apartment, we're only half way there:failed:

eyeopener vid

Obviously you havn't watched the video. What kind of factory would be able to employ someone who can make 50% downpayment and balance in 3 years?
With the condos at 70-100k and the average worker making 6k a year. How the FUCK does that work?

how would one do investments if the buildings starts falling apart.. proof is the big mall... its going to take 10years for an avg worker to save enough downpayment... by then, are the apartment still going to be around?

I don't see why not, I am just conveying my message in behalf of how the real estate market works in China.

I highly doubt that it takes 10 years for an apartment to flip over there. Another point that was not brought up in the video is that, a lot of those apartments are vacant because they were purchased as vacation homes too, so the owners don't live there year round. There's no maintenance fees in China for many apartments, which can be another reason why there's structural damage.

You can get a pretty decent place in China for 100K CAD, in our terms, it's pennies, compared to what we pay here.

Sigh, if only Vancouver had prices like those apartments :(
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pretty much aberdeen centre

thats crappy how poor people live in B-city...

LOL the South China Mall....

its empty cuz of bad management and it changed ownership a few times.

my friend is currently building a new mall (along with a huge residential development) less then 15 minutes away from the south china mall, it will be completed in summer and the mall already have zero vacancy with LV, Gucci, Chanel etc all moving in.

^somehow ur title doesnt help me believe ur post

i did a bit of research on the chinese middle class to do an essay on cuisine

and the chinese middle class is in the range of 300-350 million and they make around 15k a year


so there are people who make enough to buy stuff like that,

holy shit

50% up front
the remainder within 3 years

^LOL no kidding
most people have a hard time putting down 10% here in N.A. sometimes

but I think we must remember that people in China are thrifty, hard working and really good savers. but I still don't know if they can afford these units if the average income is 15k.

this video demonstrates capitalism very well as a system that requires the maintainence of perpetual economic growth at the expense of everything else.

James. And he's greek ^_^