Chinese property bubble (2005–11)

An empty corridor in the mostly vacant New South China Mall.

The 2005 Chinese property bubble was a real estate bubble in residential and/or commercial real estate in China. The New York Times reported that the bubble started to deflate in 2011. Also, saying there were complaints that members of the middle-class were unable to afford homes in large cities. Zero Hedge claimed the bubble started to deflate in late 2013 when housing prices began to fall. The deflation of the property bubble is seen as one of the primary causes for China's declining economic growth in 2013.

The phenomenon had seen average housing prices in the country triple from 2005 to 2009, possibly driven by both government policies and Chinese cultural attitudes. High price-to-income and price-to-rent ratios for property and the high number of unoccupied residential and commercial units have been cited as evidence of a bubble. Later, average housing prices in the country increased between from 2010 to 2013, 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 are justified.

History

Economic contributors

See also: China economic stimulus program

There have been many factors that may have led to rising housing prices. Possible contributors include low interest rates and increased bank lending, beginning in 2003 under Wen Jiabao which allowed cheap credit for the construction and purchase of property while making competing debt investments less appealing. During the bubble, local government relied on land sales for income (accounting for up to 50% of revenue), incentivizing the continued sale and development of land. Limited access to foreign investments for Chinese citizens increased the appeal of domestic investments such as property. Chinese citizens also faced cultural pressures encouraging home ownership, particularly for men seeking a wife.

Responding to the 2007–2012 global financial crisis, the spending from the China economic stimulus program may have found its way into real estate, contributing to the bubble.

Non Economic Contributors

Hukou(户口)- The Hukou system in China is running similar way to US's green card system. As a citizen of PRC, Hukou residency status based on cities indicates what kind of medical and education service a citizen can obtain from local Chinese government. Hukou residency is not determined by where people actually live but by their parents' Hukou status. As a developing country, the fairly good education, employment opportunities and medical services are provided only in big cities of China such as Beijing, Shanghai and some second tier cities. Premium of Hukou at big cities in China should be evaluated properly when justifying Chinese property bubble. For instance, the education and medical premium of a Beijing Hukou can be evaluated at RMB 600,000 ($100,000), which is popular cited in Chinese internet. Most government and state-owned enterpriese only provide interview opportunity to people with the local Hukou.

Grey Income - According to independent economist Andy Xie - The scale of China's gray income is very large, possibly one-tenth of GDP. Most of grey incomes are invested in the real estate market of tier 1 and tier 2 cities, which contributes to the fact that the leverage rate of Chinese properties are small compared to the property bubbles in other countries. The normalization of grey incomes in China feeds the property bubble in the long run.

Rising fears of a bubble

Between 2005 to 2011, average housing prices rose rapidly in the Chinese real estate market. Analysts argued over whether this rise was a result of a speculative real estate bubble, or genuine increases in demand. Evidence for a bubble included significant numbers of vacant or under-performing commercial and residential properties and the continued construction of property despite these facts, including an estimated 64 million vacant apartments. There were high price-to-income ratios for real estate, such as in Beijing where the ratio is 27 to 1 years, five times the international average,(27 to 1 is based on a double income household so 54 to 1 for a single income household of roughly 6,500USD/yr) and high price-to-rent ratios for real estate, such as in Beijing where the ratio is 500:1 months compared to the global ratio of 300:1 months There was a weak secondary market for Chinese homes, with the ratio of secondary to primary residential property transactions at 0.26 for the first half of 2009 (four times as many new home purchases as secondary sales). Comparably, Hong Kong had a ratio of 7.25, and the U.S. had a ratio of 13.45.

Contributing to the bubble were Chinese companies in the chemical, steel, textile and shoe industries opening real estate divisions, expecting higher returns than in their core businesses During this period, residential housing investment as a share of China's GDP has tripled from 2% in 2000 to 6% in 2011, similar to the peak of the U.S. housing bubble.

Analysts, including Cao Jianhai, professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Andy Xie, a Shanghai economist, and Zhang Xin, a CEO of Beijing real estate developer SOHO China warned of the threat of a bubble and the economic stagnation that would follow. In response to fears of a bubble, in the summer of 2011, Standard & Poor's downgraded its outlook for China real estate development sector to negative from stable, following a tightening of credit conditions in the country and slower sales.

However, trends of increasing urbanization and rising incomes in China that could continue to support real estate prices. The World Bank stated in a November 2009 report that Chinese home prices had not outpaced increases in incomes on a nationwide level, which dispelled worries of a looming bubble. However, in its 17 March 2010 quarterly report, the group said China needed to raise interest rates to contain the risk of a property bubble. In China, there were comparatively conservative mortgage lending practices, particularly in contrast to those at the height of the United States housing bubble

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Access China service released a follow up report to the October 2010 report ‘CHAMPS: China’s fastest-growing cities’ entitled ‘Building Rome in a day: The sustainability of China’s housing boom. forecasting the population and average income in close to 300 Chinese cities, and the subsequent demand for housing in China which during the next decade. The report stated that ‘with China’s property market being an important global economic indicator, China’s housing boom will present opportunities for investors in sectors such as furniture, cars and building materials.’ Regarding China’s urban population, the report forecasts that between 2011 and 2020 it will ‘increase by 26.1% or over 160 million people, while urban per head disposable incomes will increase by 2.6-fold to 51,310 RMB (about US$7,500 at current exchange rates).’

Deflation of the bubble and effects on growth

Between 2010 and 2011, policies were enacted to curb the bubble from worsening or prevent it from occurring. The Chinese cabinet announced in 2010 it would monitor capital flows to "stop overseas speculative funds from jeopardizing China's property market" and also begin requiring families purchasing a second home to make at least a 40% down-payment.

In early 2011, Beijing banned the sale of homes to those who have not lived in Beijing for five years. Beijing also limited the number of homes a native Beijing family could own to two, and allowed only one home for non-native Beijing families. By July 2011, the Chinese Government raised interest rates for the third time that year A new nationwide real estate sales tax was introduced in China in late 2009 as a measure to curb speculative investing. A mortgage discount for first-time property buyers – which had offered fixed, 5% 20-year mortgages at just above 4% – was also eliminated.

The deflation of the bubble began in the summer of 2011, when home prices began to slow or fall in Chinese cities. The end of the property bubble is seen as one of the primary causes for China's declining economic growth in 2012.

City statistics

• Shanghai
  • Real estate prices increased by over 150% between 2003 and 2010

• Beijing and Shanghai
  • Sales of residential buildings rose by 32.6% in the first 10 months of 2013, according to NBSC. In Shanghai, sales volume of new homes sharply increased by around 26% y-o-y to Q3 2013, according to Colliers International. But residential sales in Beijing were up by only 3.2% in the first 10 months, according to the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics,

• Tianjin
  • Projected to have more prime office space than can be absorbed in 25 years at the current rate

See also

• Dwelling Narrowness
• Nail house
• List of under-occupied developments in China
• Real estate in China

External links

• Ghost town, Inner Mongolia: Inside China's empty cities Duff McDonald, 21 December 2010 Fortune Magazine/CNN
• Real estate bubble in China? - Part 1, Part 2 (video)
• China's Empty City (video)
• Utopia, Part 3: The World’s Largest Shopping Mall (video)