China Property Price Growth Slows to 21-Month Low
Growth in the cost of new housing in China decelerated for a twelfth straight month in November, according to official figures, marking the slowest rise since early 2016.
Special Report: Hidden Peril Awaits China’s Banks as Property Binge Fuels Mortgage Fraud Frenzy
While property prices in China continue to rise, mortgage fraud remains largely a hidden danger, much as subprime loans in the United States remained mostly out of sight ahead of the 2008 global financial crisis.
Mass Evictions in Freezing Beijing Winter Sparks Public Outrage but Little Official Remorse
In his nationwide address to usher in the start of 2017, China’s President Xi Jinping said he was “seriously concerned” about people living in hardship in his country — those who struggle to find jobs, housing, health care and education for their...
Chinese Property Boom Props up Xi’s Hopes for the Economy
Ocean Flower Island is a vision of luxury, Chinese-style. A man-made archipelago off the coast of the tropical island of Hainan in the South China Sea, it will boast thousands of apartments, 28 museums and 58 hotels including one which is “7-star...
China Steps up Battle Against Runaway Property Prices
Chinese banking regulators have told lenders to crack down on the use of consumer loans to finance home purchases, the latest effort to cool down the overheated property market and rein in financial risk.
Rare Public Protest in China's Shanghai over Property Rule Change
Hundreds of demonstrators have marched through a shopping district in the Chinese city of Shanghai protesting against changes to housing regulations, in a rare show of public dissent in the financial hub.
China Steps up Battle against Property Bubble
Big cities escalate efforts to curb the soaring prices that are stoking anger
Caixin Media
03.03.17
China’s Legislators Take on Zombie Companies, Real Estate
Curbing wasteful socialist-era business practices and taming unruly real estate and lending sectors will take center stage at the annual meeting of China’s legislature, which starts next week, with some also looking for signs of a...
Caixin Media
12.15.16
Attempts to ‘Clean Up Beijing’ Target Low-Cost Migrant Homes
Li Yi, a young computer engineer working in Beijing, said authorities forced him out of his apartment in a village in Haidian district in November, days after his power supply was cut off even though he had paid the bills.
...
Attempts to ‘Clean Up Beijing’ Target Low-Cost Migrant Homes
"They came and banged on tenants' doors every day until they agreed to move out, and they cut off their power supply for a week"
$100 Billion Chinese-Made City Near Singapore ’Scares the Hell Out of Everybody’
Planeloads of buyers fly in as condos rise from the sea
Seeking Lower Rent, Chinese Artists Cut Path for Themselves Outside Beijing
A small and decidedly nondescript city called Yanjiao, about an hour’s drive from Beijing, has been experiencing an influx of artists
How One City in China is Trying to Avoid a Property Boom and Bust
Chongqing mayor’s star rises thanks to scrutiny of real estate market
Fake Divorce is Path to Riches Buying Hot China Real Estate
Rising property prices have been inspiring desperate measures, as frenzied buyers are seeking to act before further regulatory curbs are imposed
China’s Urbanites Embrace Sacrifice to Ride Property Frenzy
There are signs mortgages are crimping household spending, in an economy increasingly reliant on domestic consumption
China Struggles to Curb Housing Bubble
Even as Chinese authorities desperately try to cool down an overheated housing market, their efforts are unlikely to halt the rise of speculators greased by low borrowing costs
China Cities Move to Halt Housing Market Frenzy
Speculators targeted as 15-month price surge persists
In China, Homeowners Find Themselves in a Land of Doubt
All land in China is owned by the government, which parcels it out to developers and homeowners through 20- to 70-year leases.
China Homeowners Live in Legal Limbo
Wenzhou case underscores uncertainty over land leases in country where government owns all the land.
Photo Gallery
03.03.15
Migrant Hair
This photo series of Chinese hairdressers was made in the spring of 2012, in the city center of Chengdu in Sichuan province. There, some 16 percent of the city’s...
Sinica Podcast
01.26.15
Inside the Property Revolution
from Sinica PodcastLuigi Tomba, expert on municipal government in China, fellow at the Australian Centre on China and the World, and author of the book ...
Infographics
01.09.15
Think Renting in Your City is Bad? Try Beijing
from SohuCompared with the numbers of a few years ago, first and second tier cities in China have an oversupply of stock on the housing market...
Why China May Avoid a U.S.-Style Property Crash
“China has clear signs of ‘froth,’ if not a bubble, in housing,” says Goldman Sachs. It looks reminiscent of the bubbles in Japan in the early 1990s and the U.S. from 2006 to 2010, it says—and finds China might turn out differently.
Infographics
05.15.14
China’s Fake Urbanization
from Sohu
This infographic explains why it is so hard for rural migrants to settle permanently in cities. For starters, city dwellers were the first to get rich after Reform and Opening Up, which created a large income disparity between them and people living...
Sinica Podcast
03.01.14
In Line Behind a Billion People
from Sinica PodcastThis week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy are joined by Damien Ma, author of In Line Behind a Billion People, a new book for China-watchers looking at how...
Back in China, Watching My Words
Back in China after many years in the U.S., Yuxin Gao feels alienated and silenced, and many ask why she returned.
China: A Place to Call Home
Property prices have almost quintupled in leading Chinese cities over the past decade and they are perhaps the biggest single threat to the country’s economic and social stability.
China Vanke Expanding To U.S. After Customer Emigration
Chinese developers are starting to take advantage of demand for real estate around the world from Chinese nationals as the government imposes property curbs at home.
Books
03.22.13
Pressures and Distortions
Pressures and Distortions looks at the design, building, and interpretation of cities from the point of view of their residents.The cities chronicled in depth include examples from China (Shanghai and Shenzhen), Latin America (Bogotá and Mexico City), and Indonesia (Banda Aceh). Shorter sections cover Lima and Rio de Janeiro. The authors show how residents respond creatively to environmental disaster, poverty, housing shortages, and surging urban population. They also show how governments, international relief agencies, architects, and planners can shape better urban environments.
The Spillover Effects of a Downturn in China’s Real Estate Investment
International Monetary Fund (IMF)
Real estate investment accounts for a quarter of total fixed asset investment (FAI) in China. The real estate sector’s extensive industrial and financial linkages make it a special type of economic activity, especially where the credit creation...
Caixin Media
08.02.12
Landlords of the Rings Push Urban Rents Higher
A twenty-six-year-old woman who moved to Beijing from a distant town for work could be a poster child for urban China’s latest housing market phenomenon: skyrocketing rents.
The woman, surnamed Fang, said goodbye to Liaoning province three...
Media
06.18.12
Happiness with Chinese Characteristics
On April 2, 2012, the United Nations released the first World Happiness Report on the occasion of its first General Assembly on “...
Catastrophe Insurance Policy for China
World Bank
The vast majority of China's population lies to the southeast of a line running from Beijing to Sichuan. This entire region is subjected to major floods each year, while typhoons affect the southern and eastern coastal areas and major earthquakes...
Books
04.01.10
One Country, Two Societies
This timely and important collection of original essays analyzes China’s foremost social cleavage: the rural-urban gap. It is now clear that the Chinese communist revolution, though professing dedication to an egalitarian society, in practice created a rural order akin to serfdom, in which 80 percent of the population was effectively bound to the land. China is still struggling with that legacy. The reforms of 1978 changed basic aspects of economic and social life in China’s villages and cities and altered the nature of the rural-urban relationship.