Rebecca Feng, China's Housing Glut Collides with Its Shrinking Population; Cities are stuck with empty homes that they may never fill. Wall Street Journal, Oct 2, 2024, at page A1. https://kanebridgenews.com/china ... rinking-population/
Quote:
(a) "The country could have as many as 90 million empty housing units, according to a tally of economists' estimates. Assuming three people per household, that's enough for the entire population of Brazil [2022 census: 203 million].
(b) "The problem is much harder to solve in smaller cities, which often have weaker economic prospects and declining populations. In China, researchers informally group cities into tiers, and many of the nearly 340 cities classified as third-, fourth- and fifth-tier—with populations from few hundred thousand to several million people—are struggling economically.
"Young residents are leaving. At least 60% of China’s third-, fourth- and fifth-tier cities saw their populations shrink from 2020 to 2023, according to Wall Street Journal calculations based on official data.
"Those cities have more than 60% of China’s housing inventory, according to Harvard economics professor Kenneth Rogoff. * * *
Note:
(a) Kanebridge News (1999- ; based in Sydney, Australia; an independent property news) republished the article.
(b) "Cheap as Cabbage 白菜价 (which is sectional heading):] An abandoned development called State Guest Mansions [沈阳绿地 国宾府 (绿地集团开发, 2010 年动工，2012 年仅仅两年之后突然停工)], on the edge of Shenyang * * * Grandeur Place {I fail to find Chinese name, if any] , the building that used to house the sales showroom"
(c) Hegang 黑龙江省 鹤岗市
(d) "In Qidong [江苏省南通市 启东市], where the Yangtze River empties into the East China Sea * * * One of the new projects, Venice on the Sea" 恒大海上威尼斯
(e) bottom panel heading: Total square footage of residential home sales in China/ top panel heading: Percentage of Chinese cities that have had population declines, by tiers†
The English version has just one caption: "* through August † Tiers are determined by researchers based on factors including GDP, location and size/ Sources: Wind Information (home sales); WSJ calculation of Wind Information data (purchase)