China’s Housing Bubble Set to Pop By James Reed

     The Australian has a user only pay for it article by Alan Dupont, “China on Road to a big Crash.” I would have loved to have reported on this, and at one time I could afford to buy The Australian each day, but those days are gone. It is hard enough making it to the end of each week, without doing the super-high quality research I used to do. When the big crash comes, I am preparing to eat grass.  So, using only the free resources of the community centre, let’s see what I can produce on the same theme, on the cheap; collapse journalism.
  https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-11-10/nightmare-scenario-beijing-50-million-chinese-apartments-are-empty
  https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-11-10/why-chinese-authorities-are-freaking-out

“Back in 2017, we explained why the "fate of the world economy is in the hands of China's housing bubble." The answer was simple: for the Chinese population, and growing middle class, to keep spending vibrant and borrowing elevated, it had to feel comfortable and confident that its wealth would keep rising. However, unlike the US where the stock market is the ultimate barometer of the confidence boosting "wealth effect", in China it has always been about housing as three quarters of Chinese household assets are parked in real estate, compared to only 28% in the US, with the remainder invested financial assets. … Meanwhile, in the process of reflating the latest housing bubble, another dire byproduct of this artificial housing "market" has emerged: tens of millions of apartments and houses standing empty across the country. According to Bloomberg, soon-to-be-published research will show that roughly 22% of China’s urban housing stock is unoccupied, according to Professor Gan Li, who runs the main nationwide study. That amounts to more than 50 million empty homes.

The reason for the massive empty inventory glut: to keep supply low and prices artificially elevated by taking out as much inventory off the market as possible. This, however, works both ways, and while it helps boost prices on the way up as the economy grow and speculators flood the housing market with easy money, the moment the trend flips the spike in supply as empty units are offloaded will lead to a panic liquidation of homes, resulting in what may be the biggest housing market crash ever observed, and putting the US home bubble of 2006 to shame. Indeed, as Bloomberg notes, the "nightmare scenario" for Chinese authorities is that owners of unoccupied dwellings rush to sell when cracks start appearing in the property market, causing a self-reinforcing downward price spiral.”

     Thus, it is only a matter of time before the Chinese property bubble bursts, as all such bubbles do. It will be wonderful to see this happen, as bursting bubbles have a special magic of their own. I don’t care if I have to eat grass, or just starve to death. It just does not matter anymore. When all has been taken from one, better for the world to end, because their world goes with it. “Samson said to the servant who held his hand, “Put me where I can feel the pillars that support the temple, so that I may lean against them.” Judges 16:26.