Thứ Tư, 11 tháng 6, 2014

1 in 5 Homes in China Is Empty, Survey Finds

    Road building and large scale housing construction in the suburbs of Beijing.

    European Pressphoto Agency


    Ghost cities are a phenomenon that have worried many who pay close attention to China’s housing market. A recent survey shows just how many empty homes are out there. As Esther Fung reports:


    More than one in five homes in China’s urban areas is vacant, and a current housing-price correction is putting additional pressure on the owners of such empty properties, according to a nationwide survey by researchers from China’s Southwestern University of Finance and Economics.


    The vacancy rate of sold residential homes in urban areas reached 22.4% in 2013, or 49 million homes, up from 20.6% in 2011, according to the Survey and Research Center for China Household Finance, which conducted the analysis.



    As of August 2013, the amount of outstanding mortgage loans on vacant homes in China reached 4.2 trillion yuan ($674.33 billion), the report added.


    The survey said that vacant homes are more likely to add to homeowners’ burden and cause them to suffer a financial loss. If home prices fall by 30%, 11.2% of the vacant homes would be underwater on their mortgages, compared with just 3.3% of occupied homes, it said.



    While most Chinese cities have shown only mild home-price declines so far, many analysts are concerned that sustained price falls could result in more homeowners holding mortgages that exceed the value of their homes.



    Read the full story at WSJ.com.

     


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    1 in 5 Homes in China Is Empty, Survey Finds

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