- China's construction industry is a force unto itself - important economically and a huge employer. Its hard to say 'stop'.
- As it said in the OP - property seems the simplest way to invest money. After all, can prices go down when they are already so low compared to the west?
- In the west we built in the 1960s at (what seemed then) a ridiculous pace, with new building typologies that were often terribly designed. Like us, they will be living with (or in) the consequences for the next 50 years.
- Various levels of govt are already trying to put the brakes on the worse kinds of speculative development, with some success. Aside from the already clear examples of 'bad investment' (like the ones you point out) - the brakes are already coming from other directions too.
Why can't prices go down? As chinese apartment-owners start to look to 'cash in' their investment en masse, the supply/demand equation will flip and people will see at whatever prices they can to get some cash back out of their investment.
Unlike Chinese workers, a Chinese apartment is never going to compete against a western apartment
- China's construction industry is a force unto itself - important economically and a huge employer. Its hard to say 'stop'.
- As it said in the OP - property seems the simplest way to invest money. After all, can prices go down when they are already so low compared to the west?
- In the west we built in the 1960s at (what seemed then) a ridiculous pace, with new building typologies that were often terribly designed. Like us, they will be living with (or in) the consequences for the next 50 years.
- Various levels of govt are already trying to put the brakes on the worse kinds of speculative development, with some success. Aside from the already clear examples of 'bad investment' (like the ones you point out) - the brakes are already coming from other directions too.