Currently the real estate market seems to be on very shaky grounds as developers have debts that they’re not being able to pay off. So bonds whose coupons are due are not being paid.
Chinese citizens generally pay up front a certain amount (or fully) long before they move into their apartments. This money is generally used to complete construction. But developers seem to have used this to buy other properties for construction, over leveraging themselves. And now that construction is wayyy behind schedule and the people still can’t move in, they’re refusing to pay their mortgages causing banks to pull back lending and become more strict with debt restructuring for developers.
Tldr: Way too many homes built for people who don’t want them. Lots of loans might be unpaid. Might affect other sectors.
ELI5 about the Chinese real estate market in general? This is how they got to where they are today:
Investing in China sucks. The stock market is extremely volatile and there seem to be a lot of shady activities, banks get bank runs so you couldn't even put too much money in banks, etc
In contrast, real estate is heavily subsidized by China's state capitalistic approach, so it became a really "stable" investment... because government subsidized it
Because of this, everyone buys or want to buy real estate in China. In fact, people are willing to buy places that would almost never be lived in, because of possibility of appreciation... so we're approaching NFT-level bullshit here
Additional point: because of the above point, Chinese investors would buy real estate even when abroad & the RE market is not nearly as favorable. Obviously this causes some frictions... like a good chunk of Canadian citizen blaming Chinese ppl on raising home prices
Chinese economy is now facing hardship, so the real estate bubble is finally showing signs of leakage in the past few years
I am not an economist and cannot offer insight as to whether this would turn into an 2008 moment... Nevertheless, I am aware that Soho is an extremely well-known developer, and that the Chinese economy is to a large extent built on top of real estate. And despite how much I dislike China, it is one of the world's largest economies, and large economies don't just go belly-up without inflicting heavy damage on the whole world... So this is not good news by any means.
Overall it is a bunch of dominoes that keep rippling into China's economy and by extension the US that doesn't seem to be getting better, but circling the drain.
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