A former Chinese official's dramatic comments are a rare critique of the country's struggling housing market, which has been in crisis since 2021.
    • queermunist she/her
      2•9 months ago

      There should always be a reserve supply of vacant properties to give people freedom of movement between regions and cities.

        • @freagle@lemmygrad.ml
          2•9 months ago

          65M is what percentage of 1.4Bn? It’s about 5%.

          5% oversupply is pretty reasonable, especially given that the housing isn’t fungible and the populations are more mobile than the houses are.

        • queermunist she/her
          -5•9 months ago

          That doesn’t actually mean there are 65 million surplus properties. A vacant house isn’t an unnecessary house. Children move out all the time, families sometimes break up, Chinese citizens currently living overseas or in Europe return home, etc.

          I bet there’s actually math for this - I wonder if anyone has calculated the optimal amount of vacancies?

            • @zephyreks@programming.dev
              3•9 months ago

              Sometimes, you misspeculate. Some developers lost a whole fuck ton of money on the project, but that’s more than made up for if you can turn a profit on projects near big cities (which demand is still sky high for).

            • queermunist she/her
              -3•9 months ago

              I still find it hard to believe that they are making the best use of labor and materials

              Is anyone? If I have to choose between “housing shortage” and “housing surplus” I know which society I would prefer.