Posted on 12/22/2010 1:01:51 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Will someone please tell the Mexicans about this.
Call me conspiratorial, but these “vacant” apartments have a purpose we are not aware of; yet.
The hottest market in the hottest economy in the world is Chinese real estate. The big question is how vulnerable is this market to a crash.
One red flag is the vast number of vacant homes spread through China, by some estimates up to 64 million vacant homes.
We've tracked down satellite photos of these unnerving places, based on a report from Forensic Asia Limited. They call it a clear sign of a bubble: "There’s city after city full of empty streets and vast government buildings, some in the most inhospitable locations. It is the modern equivalent of building pyramids. With 20 new cities being built every year, we hope to be able to expand our list going forward."
Click here to see images of the Ghost cities.
...Nowhere near to this extent, but Spain has a similar problem with empty suburban developments, and the Mexicans wouldn’t have to learn a new language.
Ciudades chinas Espíritu 64 millones de viviendas vacías Nueva!
No kidding. We need to round them up, deport them with a one way ticket to China.
Real estate always crashes. Always. At some point the bubble pops. Whatever’s hot can’t last forever, it gets overvalued and everyone wants their ‘cut’, inflating and inflating well beyond actual worth.
Wow.
I read something similar in Business Week not too long ago. Your average Chinese citizen cannot even begin to afford to live in all of this empty housing, so just how will all of this end? It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
I’ve seen the same thing on a smaller scale here in America.
Outside Frisco Texas in the mid 80s a housing boom had stalled. There were miles of nice streets, sidewalks and even concrete driveways. The only thing missing was the houses.
Satellite images pulled from Google Maps showing empty Chinese ‘ghost-cities’ surfaced and went viral yesterday, capping months of allegations that there are allegedly over 64 million brand new vacant apartments in China, enough to house over 200 million people.The almost post-apocalyptic images of excess property are said to be the result of Chinese government pressure to increase internal economic activity – and hence net GDP – by any possible means, even building entire cities even when it’s unnecessary.
Will someone please tell the Mexicans about this.
Bill Gates will buy it. American employees can then be relocated to work abroad for half the pay, "all bills paid". < 1/2 sarcasm >
“Why would they learn a new language? They haven’t bothered to here in the USA. “
BINGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Bill Gates will buy it. American employees can then be relocated to work abroad for half the pay, “all bills paid”. < 1/2 sarcasm > “
Why would Bill Gates do that? He doesn’t own America, the Chinese do.....
There were miles of nice streets, sidewalks and even concrete driveways. The only thing missing was the houses.
The average Chinaman is scared of these places. they think they are haunted.
Maybe they can pay out of work American construction workers to move there and do the needed repairs to keep the empty cities in fine shape.
From the sounds of it they eventually went back to building. I know Frisco is considerably larger than it was when I was there.
I always suspect the GDP numbers were fudged but buildng cities to nowhere is the height of economic idiocy. This is like our government on drugs.
China got problems?? Well boo EFFING hoo.
I was just about to post that when I noticed your post
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.