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.
Unfortunately, in China housing is the only thing they’re legally allowed lowed to “invest” in. There is no stock market, you can’t own land, you can’t buy land in foreign countries (legally). So when their market crashes 20% that’s the equivalent of the NSDAQ, housing, and subsidies markets all crashing 20% in a day, which is like beginning great depression type stuff.
All those words for lies, wow.
…no? https://english.sse.com.cn/
there’s also a bond market.
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.
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.The kiwis in New Zealand have seen the prices fall by a third iirc
The problem is that a lot of Chinese elderly used housing as a storage of wealth.
A few years ago in China a guy went viral on billibilli (their version of YouTube) for covering how hard it was to be retired in China. The CCP took his Channel away and censored him. Funnily enough in the years since the CCP has made strides in increasing the payout of their social security system.
So they censored him and then responded to the criticism anyway.
Honestly --minus the censorship-- I wish the US would handle it this way. Stop relying on 401ks and housing value to backstop peoples retirement and increase social security payouts. The elderly have earned their right to take a break from the grind of capitalism. They should be relaxing and passing on what they’ve learned from their time on earth to the next generation.
My relaxation plan is suicide. Just like other millineals. Even though I’ve done way above average, there is no way I’ll ever retire. It’s literally illigical for me to not commit suicide. Who wants to be exhausted with nothing to look forward to?
Friend, there are millions of us millennials out here who are in the same boat. You are not alone. I am confident we will, as a generation, improve living conditions for all of us in this lifetime. Capitalism is in its death throes and it sucks that we have to deal with all of the side effects of that, but we have the power to forge new ways of living, and will likely have no choice but to do just that in the near future.
Just need to be extremely careful.
When you topple the existing power structure, it doesn’t guarantee that the next one is whichever you try ushering in. As propaganda-riddled as these points remain, the USSR a China are good examples. They went for communism but got something else in return.
Second point is that you will have to deal with propaganda. People will point to the dynamics of a power vacuum and blame the failures of handling that directly onto communism itself. So you’ll hear that communism leads to dictatorship. The truth is, change is dangerous. Communism alone doesn’t deserve the blame.
Third point is that you won’t be able to trust many people. If you have a good idea, some adversaries will try to convince you that it’s a bad one. If you have a bad idea, some adversaries will make you out to be the devil so that you loose support. Other adversaries might try to convince you that your bad idea is a good one. Either way, the goal is the same—your failure. These adversaries want their preferred way of life, not yours, and so you’re now competing.
Handling all of this is tough. If you die, who knows what person with what narrative takes your place? Assuming you dismantled the power structures that preserved the prior status quo, there’s now nothing left to steer the ship toward the good.
All of these points are making the assumption that the system we currently have is just hunky dorey. Millions die of poverty and treatable illnesses in the US every year. Isn’t that dangerous? We are all subject to the whims of a tiny minority of sadistic billionaire warmongers and business owners who have captured our news and social media and all of the branches of government. Isn’t that dangerous? You’re just going to accept that we live in a country in which there is ever growing homelessness and preventable death because you’re afraid that a people’s revolution might not turn out as expected?
That’s not at all what I said. I’m not scared. In fact, I wish I could be the one to lead it. Because I know that I would respect the risks. I can’t say that I fully understand them, but I have something more than many people from the past… I have knowledge of their results. I know that I could be careful, that I could pour my life blood into such a project and ensure its successful completion at the expense of every fiber in my body. I’d educate myself, I’d hire experts, I’d build telemetry and run tests… I’d have a damn good plan, because it would take me years in the making. I have confidence there.
My concern is that I’m actually just a nobody. So, however such a revolution should take place, I point back to what I actually said…
Just need to be extremely careful.
That would make the wealthy very happy if you did that. They wouldn’t have to pay taxes for your retirement.
My advice – if you can’t overcome your cynicism, go on to spite those fuckers who refuse to pay you enough for a comfortable retirement. To spite those who have denied you hope for the future, who want to work you to the bone and throw you in the trash.
Fuck those people, every breath you take is one less breath for Elon.
Having said that, we can organize and fight for a kinder world, that includes better social security that can pay for a comfortable retirement with people you care about. Don’t let your cynicism devour you.
A better world is possible, take action. Join DSA or start a union or join another org. Mamdani has proven the system is not invincible.
I have tried and tried. Got three STEM degrees and 20 years experience, and still never known job security. Now I’m about to be laid off again. I’m tired boss. My family can survive if I check out, but might not if I don’t. It’s a bit of a situation.
It’s not spite to continue being exhausted so a few assholes can be rich. I feel like it’s more harmful to live. I’m also coming to terms that I’m a miserable person, so maybe I was never meant to be here in the first place.
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.
The solution is only time if market starts bubbling again, like it did after the last crash. Its also possible for asset prices to stagnate for decades, and its happened before.
I feel like people forget that a significant portion of America lives in a place where the cost-of-living isn’t ridiculously high. A housing crash might make houses slightly more affordable in San Francisco, but it would be economically devastating to the interior of the country.
Honestly it probably wouldn’t even be that great for people who wanted to buy a house. Banks aren’t likely to start handing out mortgages to people who couldn’t afford the house a couple weeks ago in what is now a volatile market, and you would still be competing with companies who could pay cash.
Actually when things are less expensive they are easier to buy.
For everyone… not just poor people who need a loan, but people who can pay cash too… which is what I said.
That is how supply and demand works, though. If the prices drop, and suddenly cash buyers start pouring out of the woodwork, that will drive prices back up.
When you see prices fall, it necessarily means the cash buyers are not just swooping in and grabbing everything.
Yes which would mean that the cash buyers would have all the houses and the people who needed loans wouldn’t. Which was my point.
That is not what that means.
I promise I understand what you’re saying. I’m saying the fault in your logic is misunderstanding the upward pressure of cash buyers.
When prices fall, it isn’t chum in the water for corporate cash buyers. What it means is that those same buyers were ALWAYS there, and are now leaving. The absence of thier buy pressure is the cause of the prices falling.
Less than 20% is significant?
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/urban-rural-populations.html
I didn’t realize only rural areas had a lower cost of living than San Francisco…
I didn’t realize San Francisco is the only city in the US. Rent in every single urban area is out of control. A two bedroom apartment that I rented in Lexington, KY from 1996-2011 for $500 a month is now $1,800.
A studio apartment that I rented in Altoona, PA from 2011- 2013 for $700 a month is now $1200.
I could keep looking, as I have rented places in 38 states.
No where that isn’t rural is cheap in the US anymore. Even the most “affordable” cities are boasting about 1 br apartments that are $1,000+ a month.
Yeah, I moved out of my parents’ place in the early 2010’s. My rent was $1000. It was a shithole, but I could at least afford it. I just checked that area, and found that my old unit is up for rent. They’re demanding $2100 for it now.
It’s not just going up due to inflation adjustments. Adjusting for inflation from 2010 to now would have it closer to $1500. And that’s being generous (I added a few years to the inflation calculation) because I moved out in the early 2010’s, not exactly in 2010.
And looking at the photos they have posted for the unit, it’s still a shithole. I’m pretty sure the awful stove/oven in the kitchen photos is the exact same one I used back in the early 2010’s. The stove even has the scuffed dent in the corner from when a dumbbell weight rolled off the top of the fridge and landed on it. So it’s not like they’re actively reinvesting that money back into the units to increase value to the tenants.
So somehow the slumlords have managed to tack on an extra ~$7200 in annual profit per tenant. that’s a significant amount of cash, especially when you consider how long the prices have been inflated.
I hate to break it to you but those prices are barely more than inflation. $700 in 2011 is $1065 today. And I didn’t say anything about San Francisco being the only city in the US now you’re just reaching.
Not reaching, just using your own hyperbole in reverse.
I hate to break it to you, but inflation hasn’t done a thing to minimum wage, or wages in general.
Building and renting out should be profitable. Else nothing is built for renters. Problem is companies buying homes (not building) and try to bribe local politics to upgrade zoning laws for more profitable housing (more flats per m2 land, less living quality). There are cases where lots should be merged for upgrading zonings but this should come from the communities needs not companies’ greeds.
Building and renting out should be non-profit based. It should cover it’s cost, but not be attractive to investors - that keeps the prices from rising. Doesn’t mean that the people doing this work shouldn’t be able to live a decent life, but non-profits can pay normal salaries too.
The result is property developers buying up swathes of land and leaving it vacant until the market reaches a frenzy and they can charge an unholy price for their crappy tract homes built by subcontractors under extreme cost reduction pressures. It doesn’t meet market demand, not remotely.
Zoning and local councils are certainly complicit.
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?
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.
That’s nice. When I was a kid my dad worked in China, and they confiscated our passports, so we literally had to flee the country.
So there’s also that side of the coin.
So like ICE, then?
My dad had a work visa for a company and when his contract was up they held his passport saying he was to continue working for the company.
So no. Not like ICE.
Also, we’re talking about China, not how shit America is right now. Maybe try and stay on topic.
I’m not sure why you think your dad is the fucking topic to be honest.
Because you’re pretending like China is some fucking paradise when they literally tried to keep my family from leaving the fucking country?
We had to hide in a shipping freighter to get out of the country. But sure, go ahead and move to China, citizen.
If you don’t want people to respond to your room temperature take on something don’t post it.
In this particular thread that you commented on, the subject was I deed his father and China,
accurate representation of an average lemmy.zip user.
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.
Oooh, could we get some of that?
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.
Yes I know all that, bubbles result in stupid projects and poor quality, and banks stupidly believing growth will continue, so loaning to buy a house is easy. that’s the same here. I know how bubbles work.
But China has had an economic growth rate on an average of 10% many years of that period, it’s slowed down a bit in recent years but is still high.
But let’s say 15 years with 10% growth, that means the economy has grown 4 times in 15 years!!
So it’s crazy that prices fall back to less than when the economy was only 25% of what it is now.
Your description doesn’t explain that.
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.
Time to buy a vacation home in China?
Breaking news, looks like I’m applying for Chinese citizenship.
