Posted on 02/23/2009 12:33:25 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Beijing's Olympic building boom becomes a bust
Many buildings in the city's impressive skyline are empty.
By Barbara Demick
February 22, 2009
Reporting from Beijing — "Empty," says Jack Rodman, an expert in distressed real estate, as he points from the window of his 40th-floor office toward a silver-skinned prism rising out of the Beijing skyline.
"Beautiful building, but not a single tenant.
"Completely empty.
"Empty."
/snip
Beijing went through a building boom before the 2008 Summer Olympics that filled a staid communist capital with angular architectural feats that grace the covers of glossy design magazines.
/snip
By Rodman's calculations, 500 million square feet of commercial real estate has been developed in Beijing since 2006, more than all the office space in Manhattan. And that doesn't include huge projects developed by the government. He says 100 million square feet of office space is vacant -- a 14-year supply if it filled up at the same rate as in the best years, 2004 through '06, when about 7 million square feet a year was leased.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Ping!
Oh well, the next earthquake will take care of that.
1. Round up all of the illegals and their children.
2. Ship them to China in all those excess shipping containers we have clogging up our ports.
3. Use the excess office space in China as schools, hospitals, and day care for the children of the illegals.
How 'bout that for progressive thinking!
Gee, do you suppose the air there will freshen up?
In the late fall of 2007, as FR was discussing the pending financial doom, a FReeper called "professional" posited an exact financial scenario. The end of his choronolgy was "after the '08 Olympics".
He rarely posted in '08 until after the Olympics:
China Stock Market vs Nasdaq 2000
Wednesday, September 17, 2008 11:32:58 PM · 85 of 91
"Dang, looks like I was either correct, or like a broken watch, just got lucky. CHina is indeed cratering like the Nasdaq bubble of 2002.
Trouble is, the US market too, is getting a whooping."
yitbos
Everybody's watching what's going on in Beijing right now and the Olympics. Think about the amount of money that China has spent on infrastructure. Their ports, their train systems, their airports are all vastly superior to us now, which means if you're a corporation deciding where to do business, you're starting to think, Beijing looks like a pretty good option.
Communism at it’s best....Coming to a City near you.
One leetle mistake.
"What makes this boom-and-bust cycle different from those in the West is that there is no private ownership of land in China, making local governments de facto partners in the real estate industry, which earn huge fees from leasing and transferring land."
"Huang Yasheng, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, traces the blame for the bust to the Chinese Communist Party. . . "
yitbos
“What makes this boom-and-bust cycle different from those in the West is that there is no private ownership of land in China, making local governments de facto partners in the real estate industry, which earn huge fees from leasing and transferring land.”
“Huang Yasheng, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, traces the blame for the bust to the Chinese Communist Party. . . “
And what specifically are the differences between the Obama Administration and the Chinese Communist Party?
I’m waiting.
Good question! China is moving towards freedom, while The O, is moving away?
Chinese buildings are like Chinese food - a little while later you’re empty again.
Obama doesn't speak Chinese as far as I know.
Has anyone seen Knoxville, Tennessee after the 1982 World’s Fair? Same thing, a bunch of empty buildings and still are.
Hello Chicago, you too can have an (O)lympic bust...did not the BO want the US to be more like China with those spiffy govmental building projects?
Considering the massive property taxes many Americans have to endure, is there really “private” ownership of land in the US?
For instance, a cousin of mine pays $900 a month in property taxes for a 3br/2ba house in Coral Gables.
I’d say they owned him.
Don’t worry, US corporations like IBM are moving jobs and investment dollars to China - already there are at least 3 (and possibly 4 IBM) high-value Research Labs located in China. IBM’s corporate policy is to invest more money and effort in pursuing that market. I’m sure you’ve seen the story how IBM is offering to relocate US workers to China as long as they understand they will be hired under local ‘benefits’ (or lack thereof) and salaries.
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