Fresh out of school after studying chemistry, she joined one of China’s biggest property companies in 2016, as the country’s real estate market was taking off. She worked until 11 p.m. every day and was transferred to a bigger city after being designated a “sales champion.” She pampered herself in her limited time off by regularly buying $550 spa packages. Money was so plentiful that she didn’t have to think about it much. “The bank account was just a series of numbers,” Zhang says.
Everybody wanted what Zhang and her colleagues were selling. Owning property was so essential it was often a prerequisite for marriage. Prices never seemed to fall, so condos served the combined functions of wealth storage, insurance and retirement savings. Real estate at one point accounted for about a quarter of gross domestic product, according to Bloomberg Economics. Some estimates were even higher.
But those heady days didn’t last. Even though President Xi Jinping warned that “houses are for living in, not speculation,” by 2021 developers were selling homes faster than they could build them and piling on debt in search of expansion. When the government suddenly cracked down on borrowing, it all fell apart. Many homebuyers were left waiting on stalled construction, sparking angry protests across the country. Developers including Country Garden Holdings Co. and the collapsed giant China Evergrande Group defaulted on bond debts. Government revenue plunged. Images of tracts of empty buildings and uncompleted public works became global symbols of the nation’s waning confidence and disgruntlement with Xi’s handling of the world’s second-largest economy.
finance.yahoo.com/news/chinas-housing-crash-could-set-000018582.html
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