We just brought our apartment in Kaiping ( 2 hours by bus south of Guangzhou / west of Shenzhen ). It's a three bedroom 2nd floor unit. The purchase price was 228,000 RMB + 39,000 RMB for a storage/mini garage = 267,000 RMB. It'll cost approx. 100,000 RMB to finish the interior so the final cost will be approx. 360,000 RMB or under $ 60,000 Canadian / $ 53,000 US. There are no monthly maintenance fees.
Kaiping is a city of 800,000 residents. In GZ/SH where the pop. is over 8 million, real estate will be much higher.
Kaiping residents are very finicky .....
1) There's a huge apartment complex next door to ours ... 10 buildings in total x 8 floors x 4-6 units per = approx. 320 units minimum. They only sold 45 units. Why
Because the front main road floods when there's a heavy rainfall.
2) Another huge complex 10 minutes away from us with twice as many apartment buildings has sold pretty well. But Sunny's Mom didn't want us to buy there because the land used to be a cemetery. The apartments are about 85 % sold out .... but the houses are about 85 % unsold. A five bedroom townhouse will cost about $ 300,000 Canadian ... not cheap by Chinese standards. Each bedroom has it's own bathroom. As you guess, buyers will have multiple families live in those houses ... in-laws + siblings.
3) In Kaiping, the period of gov't redemption is after 60 years.
4) Many new apartment complexs sit empty [ though completed ] because the builder didn't get the gov't registration approval papers.
5) A real estate broker just open for business selling used apartments. A 10 year old three bedroom unit can be brought for 120,000 RMB. But like Irish wrote, it looks run down and older than it actually is. 90% of apartments [ new or old ] don't have elevators. Residents keep to themselves and don't care about the upkeep of the common areas. In newer complexes where there are elevators. landscapes and mini parks, there are maintenance fees of 200 RMB + per month.
6) Some residents will just buy a large garage space [ two car garage with a second floor space ] and convert it into a home or small business with living space.
7) Burglaries are a huge problem. Even if there are aluminum / steel window bars, thieves will find a way to pry it open.