I don't know how this will end up. In Malaysia and Indonesia, you can see a lot of half completed buildings dated 1997 the last Asian financial crisis. I suppose that the majority of empty apartments in China are owned by local government officials, companies owned by local governments. If Xi is strong enough, maybe he can mandate that all apartments left empty for more than X years be confiscated by the central government. Sounds terrible but something of similar scale happened in Singapore during the 70s up till early 80s when the government mandatorily acquired large pieces of land from land owners for small compensation. The total size of land acquired from private hands was equivalent to 1/3 of the entire land area of Singapore then. The land acquired were used to build industrial parks and public housing apartments which ironically today, many of which are sold to new migrants from China for like $150-$400k a unit. They can't afford to buy their home in China, so they migrate to Singapore.
in China the land rights are very certain, just like the return of Hong Kong from British back to China after 100 years back in 1997 those unoccupied units are just like our toys, we buy them and chuck them one side and when we see new toys, the old ones go to the dumping grounds it was their darlings when prices were moving up...then it become their enemy when prices tanked they were the smarter investors at the beginning... and later they become the bags holders in unwanted units...their owner have abandon them
If you consider Shenzen most of the early developers all went bankrupt trying to sell for $100,000 but in firesale many people bought for bargain prices of $20,000. Bargain basement prices meant people moving in, people moving in meant new job and new factories opening. Than new developers came in and it all snow balled to $500,000 for pretty small basic apartment. Seems like until the first developers go bankrupt in these more remote area, (Shenzen was remote in 1980) development it stagnates. In contrast to new development on the outskirts of big towns, like Yanjiao, some 35 kilometres outside of Beijing in Hebei province prices were $200,000 2016 try to find modern apartment now for less than $350,000 and 35km is not that far. It not like ghost town are anything unquie, Australia has many thousands of houses that were worth 5 to 10 times LESS THAN what it sold for ten years ago after mining bust.... all empty now but one day they might be worth half a million to over million again.
Interesting to know that part of Shenzhen in the early days. I’m quite sure Australian properties will rebound one day. It is the safe haven, along with Canada and NZ which every elite in China (and Singapore) will need to have when the ponzi finally implodes. Anyway, a strange observation from Singapore. I’ve been complaining about not been able to buy pm in the secondary market but just after the New Year, the number of people selling gold coins and billion suddenly increased, and for once I actually managed to get a half oz kangaroo at spot. But this is for gold. I’m still not able to get silver bullion from the secondary market. Asking prices are still higher than dealer price. I think this isn’t surprising if you consider that there’s a lot of gold lying around in homes in the form of jewellery and coins, but hardly anyone has silver to sell. Silver bugs aside, the ordinary man on the street here has no silver. But I shouldn’t be shocked as before I bought my first silver bar last year, I have actually not seen a silver bar in my more than 40 years of life. Though, I’ve might have seen a silver coin somewhere but have not held one previously.
I wouldn’t be surprised with older generation middle class (developed) Asian homes having over 10 ounces each of pure gold. Even now younger Middle class Asian seems to have astounding amount of pure bullion form gold. Where as In an Australian middle class Home one would be hard pressed to get half an ounce of carat gold from all the jewellery.
For the younger Singapore families, gold wedding dowry is stashed hidden at home, a couple ounces I think? Among Singaporean Generation Y, I noticed a growing popularity in white gold and diamonds wedding/engagement bands. Yellow gold is not considered fashionable. I myself opted for rose gold - copper gold which I don't even wear on a daily basis. Many Gen Z wear silver or even stainless steel jewellery. I believe the popularity of silver as a jewellery will rise should gold go above US$3000, and if silver were not so cheap - silver above US$50 per oz should see more jewellery demand. Sterling silver jewellery is often sold in flee markets here, a bangle costs $10 a piece (could be cheaper I didn't try to bargain). The same stall owner could be selling $1 plastic hairclips along with the silver.
As long as crooks control the spot price the pm price will go where they want it to .... not where you want it to ...
Supply or rather perceived supply also plays an important part. The perception is that the New World (Mexico) with it's cheap slave like exploitable labour, can supply unlimited cheap silver. Before they discovered the New World, silver was "more precious". In some places like China, people actually preferred silver to gold.
Sorry but its blah blah blah ... say what you like ... they report what they want to report ... so nah nah nah ...
Anyone who actually preferred silver to gold is a fool! Sites that publish these crap are fake news sites. And people who believe any of it deserve to lose their money. Once silver was taken out of money the GS ratio went to the toilet. It will never return. Silver has become an industrial metal and no govt uses it as currency any more.
so is Palladium as industrial metal, but selling for more than gold now it is worth the money to be switching the correct steps all the way so there is no logic in the argument LBMA this LBMA that
so was aluminium as industrial metal, but selling for more than gold in the 1820s. What logic are you referring to?
So true, silver should be compared to copper a industrial metal. For f#@k sake it tarnishes like copper. Gold and Platinum are precious metals Copper and silver are industrial metals
They say history always repeats itself. China was on a silver standard until 1935. Chinese notes were backed by silver and they were called “silver bills” in Chinese then. Banks were called “silver houses”, and for reason I don’t know, this name “Yin hang” in mandarin, is still used today. Why didn’t they replace it with “Money houses”. Interestingly, Chinese silver coins issued in the 1900s are still worth a lot, many times more than US coins of the same period. They also say bitcoin is going to replace gold. If you believe in “progress”, then gold should be on its way out just like silver. Edit: Just discovered that the word for bank in Korean “eun haeng” and Vietnamese “Ngan hang”. “Eun”, “Ngan” being silver.
In ancient to 1950s silver historically meant something but progress move on, how many people still have stone tools
At The Worlds money Fair 2019, just completed, it looks like money to me even it is not currency. Why would a country risk losing its MONEY (Silver) to other countries for paper or digits that can be created from nothing?
I heard most of the empty apartments are actually are accounted for. the chinese park their money in real estate and these are their 2nd or 3rd apartments.
No different in Sydney or other major east coast Aust cities. When I drive past completed (and settled out in last few years) apartment blocks of a night time, if I see circa 50% of apartments with lights on.
If the real estate development market in China is similar to Singapore, then the risk is always transferred to the home buyers. Developers are like pm dealers, they buy (or build), and sell continuously to ensure cashflow. They don't hold property unless it's the really prime property in the best locations which they can rent out as service apartments. Furthermore, in China, apartments are built as empty shell - absolutely no furnishing, bare concrete walls and flooring, and not even a WC. As you can see, it costs a lot of furnish them to rent out so holding is not feasible.
