China's housing boom spells trouble for boyfriends

[Irishman]

China's housing boom spells trouble for boyfriends

Reporting from Beijing —
Mike Zhang considered himself serious boyfriend material. He knew what to order at an Italian restaurant. He could mix a tasty margarita. And he always volunteered to carry his girlfriend's handbag.

Then came the deal breaker. Zhang, a 28-year-old language tutor and interpreter, couldn't afford an apartment in the capital's scorching property market.

Rather than waste any more time, his girlfriend of more than two years dumped him>>>

Lucky for me my lao po is not one of these "bai jin nu" , though we will be saving hard to buy after the wedding.

[Okie_Rob]

Housing cost in China, Major cities high ... Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen ...
Shenzhen, cost of home, actually like a "flat" or apartment, two bedroom, modern high rise with 1 bath, kitchen, living room/dining room combo ... with balcony with air cond .... 60 Meters square or 645 square feet ... about a year ago ... acquaintance friend in Shenzhen was looking at this apartment .... cost $102,000 US Dollars.  It was nice, modern, ample room, but small.  No closets, guess one has to buy free standing closets for clothes, which is commen in China.  It did have western type stool... no "squat" ... but bathroom and kitchen very small.

The same home, according to my fiancee, in her home town, Yueyang, would be about 1/2 or around $50,000 US Dollars.  Guess one can get away from major big cities and get a better deal on a home if buying.  Yueyang, guess not big city?? .. bit still 5 million population?

The banks in China, that will finance a home ... want about 30-40% down .... this is to discourage local Chinese people from buying second home for speculation.  This was another article, that I read about a year ago.... but I can not find at this time of this post.  I am listing general information from CCTV that somewhat pertains to this:

http://english.cntv.cn/20100617/102816.shtml

http://english.cntv.cn/20100618/103045.shtml

The Chinese public, are not too happy about the home prices, inflation and so forth. 

The photos atached are photos I took, and emailed back to her American boyfriend so he could see what his fiancee was trying to buy.  He was not too happy with the price and size.  The building photo from outside:  where the apartment was located on 11th floor .

[ttwjr32]

unfortunately far to many are getting to materialistic here in their search to get married.
i just love the ones who have nothing, have not had anything, and will not have anything
and they put on that this and that is a requirement to get married and some poor schmuck
falls for it. just amazes me how they get away with that. all in the search for love  haha

[temur72]

Housing cost in China, Major cities high ... Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen ...
Shenzhen, cost of home, actually like a "flat" or apartment, two bedroom, modern high rise with 1 bath, kitchen, living room/dining room combo ... with balcony with air cond .... 60 Meters square or 645 square feet ... about a year ago ... acquaintance friend in Shenzhen was looking at this apartment .... cost $102,000 US Dollars.  It was nice, modern, ample room, but small.  No closets, guess one has to buy free standing closets for clothes, which is commen in China.  It did have western type stool... no "squat" ... but bathroom and kitchen very small.

The same home, according to my fiancee, in her home town, Yueyang, would be about 1/2 or around $50,000 US Dollars.  Guess one can get away from major big cities and get a better deal on a home if buying.  Yueyang, guess not big city?? .. bit still 5 million population?

The banks in China, that will finance a home ... want about 30-40% down .... this is to discourage local Chinese people from buying second home for speculation.  This was another article, that I read about a year ago.... but I can not find at this time of this post.  I am listing general information from CCTV that somewhat pertains to this:

http://english.cntv.cn/20100617/102816.shtml

http://english.cntv.cn/20100618/103045.shtml

The Chinese public, are not too happy about the home prices, inflation and so forth. 

The photos atached are photos I took, and emailed back to her American boyfriend so he could see what his fiancee was trying to buy.  He was not too happy with the price and size.  The building photo from outside:  where the apartment was located on 11th floor .

Not a bad looking place.

A roughly equivalent place in Calgary would sell for $250 000 Can

[Willy The Londoner]

Do not forget that when you buy a 100 square metre property it will never be 100 square metres in size!

Work out the total ground that the complex is sitting on, car parks, gardens, forecourts etc.

 You pay for all those facilities and the total is added to your size to bring you up to that 100 sq meters.

So you pay for these outside pieces that you will never own!

Nice easy money.

Willy

PS Move south, my apartments is available for me to buy at 250,000 rmb.  But i want the one accross the way which is a 3 bedroom and is brand new and just 600,000 fully finished and furnished.

[Crystal Tao]

Wu wu wu... me and my boyfriend have to hurry up - we began saving money to buy apartments in Chongqing.
But my friends tell me that the prices continue to rise.

[temur72]

Wu wu wu... me and my boyfriend have to hurry up - we began saving money to buy apartments in Chongqing.
But my friends tell me that the prices continue to rise.

I would save the money and wait

The property values are getting out of hand, and are not supportable for economic reasons (ie people salaries wont let them cover the mortgage let alone the rent)

Meaning that a price decline will come and it will come hard and swift

[Paul Todd]

May 31, 2010

The Shanghai Daily is reporting that real estate developers in the city have been reluctant to cut selling prices, despite signs demand will die without lower prices. The market is facing a potential 70% drop in transaction volume:

Shanghai Daily:
"For the whole month, the figure should be around 300,000 square meters, and that could be a plunge from a month earlier when 1.02 million square meters of new houses were sold across the city," said Lu Qilin, a researcher at the firm. "On the supply side, more than 850,000 square meters of new housing were launched for sale this month, compared with 1.23 million square meters in April."
Demand is falling since China's central government announced stricter regulations for property transactions during the middle of April. These involve higher down payments and mortgage rates for the purchase of second home, and act which is seen as potential speculation. Such tightening is reducing buying demand.
Thus a moderately bearish view is that property prices need to come down, since demand is likely down yet supply is the same. This challenge isn't limited to Shanghai:

China Vanke Co, the country's largest publicly listed developer, may cut apartment prices by 10 to 30 percent within three months, the Beijing News said yesterday, citing an unidentified sales agent. Local Vanke officials declined to comment yesterday.

Yet Shanghai is where things could get the ugliest, the earliest. This is because the local Shanghai government is planning to clamp down on speculation even harder than China's central government already has:

China Daily:
Chen Qiwei, a spokesman for the Shanghai municipal government, did not preclude the possibility of levying property tax when asked about this issue at a press conference on Friday.
"Shanghai will take more strict measures in line with the central government policy," Chen said, adding that more efforts will be made in building economically affordable houses and cracking down on speculative house purchasing.

Other cities such as Beijing, Chongqing, and Shenzen have similar additional taxes planed, but Shanghai is the first to make an official comment .Of course any action from Shanghai will need approval from the central government.

The Chinese Government have seen the chaos caused to the global economy from a hosing bubble collapse. I hope they learn from it and take measures to prevent it happening again. As a side note the Chinese banks basic savings rate is so poor that according to a report I read you lose between 1 and 2 % a year on your deposit. This makes buying into the property market very attractive to them. If they raised the savings rate maybe this would have some affect? If I where looking to buy a new apartment I think I would sit back and watch for a while.

[chen yan]

"60 Meters square or 645 square feet ... about a year ago ... acquaintance friend in Shenzhen was looking at this apartment .... cost $102,000 US Dollars."

The house probably located suburbs, The house in shenzhen which the  metro can arrive ,the price should x 2 or 3

[Paul Todd]

I don't think this help's

Housing boom fuels corruption in China
June 18 2010

China’s push to build cheap housing for low-income families is being undermined by some local governments that are using the policy as a front to provide public officials with sweetheart property deals.

In Xinzhou, an industrial town in Shanxi province’s coal belt, a new complex of smart apartments called Century Garden was on the local government’s list of designated social housing.Instead, almost all the 1,578 apartments have been reserved for local officials, some of whom have already resold them at considerable profits before construction is completed.

The Xinzhou case is one of a string of revelations about cut-price flats for local officials that have emerged just as Beijing is ramping up its plans to build social housing.The scandals are becoming the latest flashpoint in the combustible politics of China’s housing boom, which has transformed the living conditions of tens of millions in the past decade but which is increasingly creating a disaffected rump of citizens left out of the real-estate bonanza.

“You are never going to get rich if you do not do anything illegal,” says Wang Zhu, a 60-year-old former policeman [ haha haha classic!]  who has a three-room, brick house across the road from Century Garden in Xinzhou and runs a small flower shop.

Social housing has become one of the Chinese government’s main priorities, including the promise to build 5.8m apartments for low-income families this year. The goal is to reduce social tensions surrounding the rapid rise in house prices, while ensuring that the clampdown on property speculation does not cause a collapse in real-estate construction, one of the main drivers of economic growth.”

In Rizhao, a city in Shandong province, eastern China, a complex of 3,500 apartments designated as social housing, some with sea views, was sold to local officials at prices 30-50 per cent below market values. In Meixian, in the central China’s Sha’anxi province, around 80 per cent of the city’s first social housing development, called Urban Beautiful Scenery, went to local officials.

“We are quite sceptical about the prospect for subsidised housing,” says Michael Klibaner, head of China research at property group Jones Lang LaSalle. “There is not much transparency about the plans for affordable housing.”Under Beijing’s instructions, if local governments want to allocate new land to residential housing, they must ensure a significant proportion goes to projects for affordable apartments, which can charge lower prices because they are usually exempt from certain land use fees. In some cities, developers say the new rules and pressure from Beijing have forced them to build more cheaper and smaller flats.

[ttwjr32]

well thats the trouble here in China   CORRUPTION at these levels  every once in a while you do read
about some schmuck who is given a life sentence for his corruption but that is just the token throw the
bone to the dog type of action