If the leaks and rumors are true, Beijing stands ready to launch a new and radical solution to the economy’s property crisis – a government takeover. What the authorities refer to as “a new model” would replace the old emphasis on ownership with more rentals and use government funds to buy up bankrupt properties so that in time the government’s role in real estate would rise from 5% of the market at present to 30%. Such an act would surely take the nation back to its communist roots if not quite the days of Mao Zedong. If it would veil the property crisis for a time, it would in the long run do tremendous damage to China’s economic prospects.

xi-peel

  • context [fae/faer, fae/faer]
    hexagon
    ·
    10 months ago

    Beijing’s ability to manage real estate also comes into question after considering how poorly the authorities have managed things to date. Prior to 2020, Beijing actively encouraged residential real estate development, pushing local authorities to get involved and ensuring easy credit terms for both developers and homebuyers. Private builders and speculators responded actively, taking on debt and pursuing increasingly dubious projects so that even as China was meeting its housing needs, such development reached the astronomical level of some 30% of China’s economy. Then in 2020, Beijing abruptly removed all this support. Not surprisingly, the highly leveraged and extended developers began failing almost immediately.

    xi-lib-tears oh no! not the speculators! it would be a real shame if a bunch of capitalists lost tons of money and all we got out of it was all this housing that now we can buy up for cheap!

    • betelgeuse [comrade/them]
      ·
      10 months ago

      Since US prices are so high, they were salivating at a Chinese housing crisis. That way they could enter the Chinese market and buy up properties for cheap. But since the government is going to buy up the cheap homes, they can't enter the market. So now comes the propaganda tantrum about how there's no way this will work, it's evil, it's authoritarian.

      Problem is that shit only works on Americans. Appealing to Chinese people's sens of individualistic English property rights doesn't really work.

      • context [fae/faer, fae/faer]
        hexagon
        ·
        10 months ago

        you nailed it

        also forbes about u.s. commercial real estate:

        Finally, while it will be a tough year or two for the commercial real estate community, I expect the amount of capital on the sidelines will open up the market and create once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. As the old adage goes in real estate, "It is not the first or second but the third owner who makes money on a project." The opportunities will be plentiful, but the buyers will have to view the assets through a new lens.

      • Tankiedesantski [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        Since US prices are so high, they were salivating at a Chinese housing crisis. That way they could enter the Chinese market and buy up properties for cheap. But since the government is going to buy up the cheap homes, they can't enter the market.

        Incompetent Chinese property developer: "I consent!"

        Soulless American hedge fund: "I consent!"

        The Communist Party of China: "Was there somebody you forgot to ask?"

        The myth of consensual market entry.

    • Zuzak [fae/faer, she/her]
      ·
      10 months ago

      Prior to 2020, Beijing actively encouraged residential real estate development. . . [Developers persued] increasingly dubious projects so that even as China was meeting its housing needs. . . Then in 2020, Beijing abruptly removed all this support.

      So they funded housing development until there were plenty of houses at which point they stopped funding more development and this is bad for some reason? What did they want them to do, continue encouraging development when there wasn't a need for it solely to prop up the investors?

      • BurgerPunk [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        10 months ago

        What did they want them to do, continue encouraging development when there wasn't a need for it solely to prop up the investors?

        Unironically yes. Liberalism is crazy

      • Rod_Blagojevic [none/use name]
        ·
        10 months ago

        If they had done that, then we could get more of the stories about the ghost cities that are the harbinger of China's imminent collapse. I've been reading those articles for decades. They've kept a lot of journalists busy.

        • Raebxeh
          ·
          10 months ago

          Imagine taking a city’s population growth chart, extrapolating the data out 5 years, and including the projected need to housing in your 5 year plan. These damn commies are way too prepared for predictable trends. Suspicious.

      • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
        ·
        10 months ago

        Well, they are leaving out how demand fell off a cliff after Beijing locked everyone in their high rise apartments for a year or more.

        • Zuzak [fae/faer, she/her]
          ·
          10 months ago

          Imagine the government listening to the science and using public health measures to save millions of lives instead of demanding everybody go die so the quarterly profits aren't interrupted.

          covid-coolsolidarityporky-happy

    • RyanGosling [none/use name]
      ·
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      gives capitalists the money and leniency to build a bunch of housing

      abruptly yoinks it from them after they’re built and tell them to fuck off

      subsidize the housing so people can live in it

      suswcc problem?

  • Awoo [she/her]
    ·
    10 months ago

    If the leaks and rumors are true, Beijing stands ready to launch a new and radical solution to the economy’s property crisis – a government takeover.

    Leaks and rumours?

    Isn't it what they said they would do ages ago?

    • Infamousblt [any]
      ·
      10 months ago

      No but see we can't trust anything China's government says it's going to do even though it has a long and storied history of doing literally exactly what it says it's going to do because ... reasons? I guess? So we can only trust anonymous sources instead.

  • FuckyWucky [none/use name]
    ·
    10 months ago

    xigma-male There is no 'property crisis', its made up by the market.

    When 2008 housing bubble burst, the problem wasn't that the homes magically vanished, the homes remained, taken over by ghouls and leaving the individuals with debt which wasn't wiped off clean.

  • invo_rt [he/him]
    ·
    10 months ago

    This dude has written at least 9 China bad articles in the last month.

    • emizeko [they/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      getting some of this probably. wonder if a FOIA would be able to find out where it all goes

      (a) Countering Chinese influence fund. —There is authorized to be appropriated $300,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2021 through 2025 for the Countering Chinese Influence Fund to counter the malign influence of the Chinese Communist Party globally. Amounts appropriated pursuant to this authorization are authorized to remain available until expended and shall supplement, not supplant, amounts otherwise authorized to be appropriated to counter such influence.

      EDIT: apparently this money passed the senate but never actually became law. my apologies

      • RyanGosling [none/use name]
        ·
        10 months ago

        We need to create an organization and start requesting funds from this and pump out a bunch of “china is bad because it gives housing for low prices” articles

        • emizeko [they/them]
          ·
          10 months ago

          sorry it looks like I was misinformed. the money passed the senate, but didn't make it into the CHIPS and Science act which is the one that actually got signed by Genocide Joe

        • emizeko [they/them]
          ·
          edit-2
          10 months ago

          the law passed, yeah

          it looks like this house bill did not advance, but another bill, the Strategic Competition Act of 2021, contained the same $300 million annual funding

          • https://www.axios.com/2021/04/13/senate-china-bill
          • https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3131467/us-offer-millions-new-funds-take-china

          despite the reporting here saying it passed, I can't find confirmation of that on the congress.gov page for it. I'm not familiar enough yet with the legislative databases to read these tea leaves.

          EDIT: okay this was quite a rabbit hole, it became the Innovation and Competition Act, which did contain the 300m language, which passed but did not become law. the one that did become law is called the CHIPS and Science act, and so far I do not see the 300m to counter Chinese influence money in it. well, shit. I really thought it was law but it just passed the Senate looks like. my apologies

    • RyanGosling [none/use name]
      ·
      10 months ago

      It’s hard being American and realizing your government doesn’t give a shit about you and spends all its resources committing genocide

            • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
              ·
              10 months ago

              Tapping the sign

              According to Marx's theory of historical materialism, societies pass through six stages — primitive communism, slave society, feudalism, capitalism, socialism and finally global, stateless communism.

              Don't hold your breath

  • RyanGosling [none/use name]
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    use government funds to buy up bankrupt properties so that in time the government’s role in real estate would rise from 5% of the market at present to 30%

    We should let unused, bankrupt property be repo’d by banks so they can use it to gamble on doge coin

      • SwitchyWitchyandBitchy [she/her]
        ·
        10 months ago

        They're seething because normally they'd be swooping in to buy up all the housing for pennies in the dollar so that they can charge whatever rent they want to.

    • CloutAtlas [he/him]
      ·
      10 months ago

      If housing shouldn't be a commodity, then why is it so lucrative under capitalism? Checkmate leftists

  • regul [any]
    ·
    10 months ago

    This is my dream result for the YIMBY movement. Dense infill housing built in all cities and then immediately expropriated.

    Also it's very funny that 30% publicly-owned housing is communist when I'm pretty sure Singapore has a much higher percentage.

    • SkingradGuard [he/him, comrade/them]
      ·
      10 months ago

      Yeah I think the "free" capitalist Singapore has like 78% of their population living in public housing...yet you don't see these fascists fearmongering about how Singapore is "foolish" and "communist" for doing so.

  • SuperZutsuki [they/them]
    ·
    10 months ago

    Lmao, what "crisis"? That there's a surplus of housing and people are easily able to afford to live? This is what only being able to see things through the lens of profit does to a mf.

  • iridaniotter [she/her, she/her]
    ·
    10 months ago

    This is journalism? With these writing standards you may as well hire a sixteen year-old for $7.25 an hour.

    • Greenleaf [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      Fun fact: a lot of these articles actually are done for free or even the author pays the website/publisher. The telltale sign - as is the case here - is when the author works in a profession where they need to generate business (like investment managers) and especially when they have a book to sell. The author here almost certainly wrote this so he gets exposure as an “investment guru”.

    • Raebxeh
      ·
      10 months ago

      Except China’s not gonna be maintaining private ownership or redlining ethnic minorities out of said ownership

  • Aria@lemmygrad.ml
    ·
    10 months ago

    it would in the long run do tremendous damage to China’s economic prospects.

    Says the people who's advice leads to less than half the economic growth that China has on off-years.

  • VILenin [he/him]M
    ·
    10 months ago

    Liberals critiquing Marxism: “Fear not, for Don Quixote has come to relieve you of your delusions! Those aren’t windmills you’re seeing, you utter fucking morons, they’re giants! Wake up sheeple!”