Tag: Real Estate and Housing (Residential)

China’s Spending Slowdown Deepens as Households Tighten Their Belts

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China’s consumer spending slowdown deepened in May as retail sales unexpectedly fell from a year earlier, in the latest sign that the country’s housing market crash has left millions of families reluctant to spend. Retail sales dropped 0.6 percent in May from the same month a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday. It was the first year-over-year decline since December 2022, when a wave of coronavirus infections swept the country and kept consumers at home after Beijing abruptly dismantled its stringent “Covid zero” restrictions. Last month’s…

China’s Endless Housing Crisis Shows Faint Signs of Hope

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During China’s slow-moving housing crash, there have been brief stretches when prices stabilized, raising hopes that the multiyear slide was finally over. Each time, those reprieves have proved short-lived — pauses before the market resumed its decline. After housing prices in several of China’s biggest cities leveled off in the first few months of the year, the market is again at a crossroads. Analysts and economists are split over whether this constitutes a bottom for a downturn that has eroded much of the country’s middle-class savings or merely another lull…

How China’s Housing Crisis Has Global Consequences

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new video loaded: How China’s Housing Crisis Has Global Consequences <img src="https://www.chinastrategy.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/how-chinas-housing-crisis-has-global-consequences.png" data-testid="betamax-poster" sizes="(width Our Beijing bureau chief, Keith Bradsher, describes how China’s enormous housing crash is affecting economies all over the world. By Keith Bradsher, Rebecca Suner, Thomas Vollkommer, Joey Sendaydiego and Luke Piotrowski May 21, 2026 NYT

Homeowners Fight for Control of Their Community in China

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The drum team arrived late to the rally, its members wearing bright red costumes as they spilled out of a minivan. Other attendees were already dancing to music blaring from a nearby speaker or chanting the name of their favored candidate. It had all the hallmarks of a rollicking election campaign. But the dozens of people who had gathered on a winter morning in January, about two hours northwest of Beijing, were not there to support a politician. This was about their homeowners’ association. In the United States, homeowners’ associations…

China’s Plan to Spur Growth: A New Slogan With Familiar Ideas

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From the top of the government, China is heavily promoting a plan to fix the country’s stagnant economy and offset the harm from a decades-long housing bubble. The program has a fresh slogan, presented foremost by Xi Jinping, the country’s top leader, as “new, quality productive forces.” But it has features that are familiar from China’s economic playbook: The idea is to spur innovation and growth through massive investments in manufacturing, particularly in high-tech and clean energy, as well as robust spending on research and development. And there have been…

China Sets Economic Growth Target of About 5%

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China’s top leaders on Tuesday set an ambitious target for growth as its economy is laboring under a steep slide in the housing market, consumer malaise and investor wariness. Premier Li Qiang, the country’s No. 2 official after Xi Jinping, said in his report to the annual session of the legislature that the government would seek economic growth of around 5 percent. That is the same target that China’s leadership set for last year, when official statistics ended up showing that the country’s gross domestic product grew 5.2 percent. Some…

China’s Country Garden Faces Winding Up Petition In Hong Kong

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Country Garden, China’s largest real estate developer as recently as 2022, said on Wednesday that a creditor had asked a Hong Kong court to liquidate its operations and pay off lenders, in the latest sign that China’s housing crisis continues unabated. Ever Credit Ltd., a Hong Kong lender, is petitioning the city’s High Court to shut down Country Garden. The court filing involves Country Garden’s failure to repay a loan of $204 million plus interest owed to Ever Credit, the real estate developer told the Hong Kong stock market. Ever…

After China Evergrande, Real Estate Crisis ‘Has Not Touched Bottom’

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The unwavering belief of Chinese home buyers that real estate was a can’t-lose investment propelled the country’s property sector to become the backbone of its economy. But over the last two years, as firms crumbled under the weight of massive debts and sales of new homes plunged, Chinese consumers have demonstrated an equally unshakable belief: Real estate has become a losing investment. This sharp loss of faith in property, the main store of wealth for many Chinese families, is a growing problem for Chinese policymakers who are pulling out all…

China Evergrande Must Be Liquidated, a Judge Said. What Happens Next?

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After nearly two years of false starts, last-ditch proposals and pleas for more time, China Evergrande, a massive property company, has been ordered to dismantle itself. It’s a big moment. Evergrande’s collapse in 2021 sent China’s housing market into a tailspin. The worries in real estate, where most households put their savings, helped tip the economy into a downturn. The scale of Evergrande’s empire is enormous: Its developments cover hundreds of cities. It controls dozens of business and is more than $300 billion in debt — a sum far greater…

Real Estate Giant China Evergrande Will Be Liquidated

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Months after China Evergrande ran out of cash and defaulted in 2021, investors around the world scooped up the property developer’s discounted I.O.U.’s, betting that the Chinese government would eventually step in to bail it out. On Monday it became clear just how misguided that bet was. After two years in limbo, Evergrande was ordered by a court in Hong Kong to liquidate, a move that will set off a race by lawyers to find and grab anything belonging to Evergrande that can be sold. The order is also likely…