China’s empty houses can’t be entirely occupied despite its 1.4 billion population
Apartment blocks are pictured in Beijing, China
In a rare public condemnationof the crisis-hit real estate market in the nation, a former official in China claimed on Saturday that the nation’s 1.4 billion people would not be able to fill all the vacant flats across several residential complexes all over the nation
Since China Evergrande Group, a massive real estate developer, stopped paying its debts in 2021 as a result of restrictions on recent borrowings, the country's once-stable property market has been in free fall.
Even now, established builders like Country Garden Holdings remain dangerouslynear to going bankrupt, which continues to keep buyers' confidence low.
According to the most recent data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the aggregate floor area of unsold residences as of the end of August was 648 million square metres (7 billion square feet).
Considering an average home size to measure about 90 square metres, Reuters calculated that to be equivalent to 7.2 million residences.
The majority of empty space, according to experts, is made up of vacant properties that were bought by speculators during the previous market upturn in 2016 and numerous residential projects that have previously been sold but have not yet been finished due to cash flow issues.
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Reuters quoted former deputy director, He Keng, who said that when it comes to the number of empty houses, most experts claim there are already enough establishments to house 3 billion people.
In a video published by the government-run China News Service, he had remarked at a symposium in the southern Chinese city of Dongguan, "That estimate might be a bit excessive, but 1.4 billion people probably can't fill them."
The idea that the Chinese economy is "resilient" is in stark contrast to his critical assessment of the economically significant industry in a public forum.
At a recent news conference, a representative from the foreign ministry stated: "All sorts of comments predicting the collapse of China's economy keep surfacing every now and then, but what has collapsed is such rhetoric, not China's economy."
(With inputs from Reuters)
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