Gold bars, new cars and mobile phones are among the incentives being offered to potential homebuyers by Chinese property developers as they grow increasingly desperate to boost sales. Huafa Tianfu, a developer in the eastern city of Hangzhou, has been offering up to a kilo of gold bullion to tempt people into buying its flats. According to local media reports, the amount of gold ranges from 700g of gold for an 89 sq metre flat, to just over 1kg for a 100 sq metre apartment. Property prices in the development…
Tag: Real estate
China’s top property developer expects first loss since 2007 flotation
China’s top property developer expects to record a loss in 2022 – its first since the company went public in 2007 – in another blow for the country’s embattled property sector. In a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange on Monday, Country Garden said that the losses for 2022 would amount to between 5.5bn yuan and 7.5bn yuan (£663.6m-£904.9m). In 2021 Country Garden’s profits reached 26.8bn yuan. Country Garden blamed the downturn on the Covid-19 pandemic, unfavourable currency exchanges and the reorganisation of certain projects. It said that these…
Chinese banks try to revive housing market with mortgages for 95-year-olds
In an attempt to stimulate China’s flagging housing market, banks in some cities are extending the upper age limit on mortgages to between 80 and 95. Although not a national policy, banks in Beijing, Hangzhou and other big cities have started offering “relay loans” to elderly customers, which pass on to their children in the event that they cannot repay. Regulators have previously encouraged or enforced lower age limits on borrowing, measured by the formulation of age plus loan period, and usually capped at about 70 years. But the new…
China owns vast network of UK real estate, offshore records reveal
The Chinese government owns a vast network of UK real estate via offshore secrecy jurisdictions such as Luxembourg and the Isle of Man, the Guardian can reveal, raising questions about Beijing’s grip on links in the UK supply chain. Disclosures made as part of a new government register of property owned via offshore entities show that China’s investment division owns more than 250 properties across Britain via dozens of companies. They include distribution centres that are key to the flow of food and goods in multiple regions of the UK…
A Ponzi scheme by any other name: the bursting of China property bubble
A little more than a year ago, a Chinese property developer largely unknown to the outside world said its cashflow was under “tremendous pressure” and it might not be able to pay back some of its eye-watering debts of $300bn (£275bn). Today, that company, China Evergrande Group, is all too well known as the poster child of the country’s economic woes. House prices in China have fallen in each of the 12 months since Evergrande’s now prophetic warning, with Xi Jinping’s government now preparing to throw billions of dollars at…
From economic miracle to mirage – will China’s GDP ever overtake the US?
“The east is rising, the west is declining”, according to the narrative propagated by the Chinese Communist party (CCP). Many outside China take its “inevitable rise” as read. On the way to becoming a “modern socialist country” by 2035, and rich, powerful, and dominant by 2049, the centenary of the People’s Republic, China wants to claim bragging rights as its GDP surpasses the United States, and project its power based on its expanding economic heft. There is, however, a critical flaw in this narrative. China’s economy may fail to overtake…
China’s indebted property sector highlights a fading economic revival
China’s economy has become heavily dependent on property development over the last decade. High-rise apartments have mushroomed across hundreds of cities to house a growing white-collar workforce, while glass and steel office blocks are dominating city centres, mimicking Shanghai’s glittering skyline. Valued at more than $50tn after 20 years of rapid growth, Chinese real estate is worth twice as much as the US property market and four times China’s annual income. George Magnus, an associate at Oxford University’s China Centre, says this real estate market ranks as the most important…
Oil prices climb to fresh highs, UK petrol price hits record – business live
More reaction is coming in from trade unions, economists and analysts to the increase in the national living wage and the minimum wage from next April. Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) said a boost to the minimum wage was vital “in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis” But the government must set its sights higher. We need a £10 minimum wage now, and we need ministers to cancel the cut to universal credit. This increase won’t come into effect until next spring by which time…