China’s property crash has erased $18 trillion since 2021. That is more than the U.S. lost during its entire financial crisis. The sequel is bigger.

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Since 2021, China’s real estate market has lost $18 trillion in value. That number is in U.S. dollars, not yuan. And yes, it is bigger than the total losses suffered during America’s financial collapse in 2008. The wreckage stretches from stalled towers in Tianjin to bankrupt mega-developers in Shenzhen. The floor is still falling.

Real estate once made up 29% of China’s GDP. It was not just a sector. It was the engine. Local governments depended on land sales. Middle-class families funneled savings into presale apartments. Developers borrowed against unfinished units. That flywheel ran hot for two decades. Then it seized. The collapse started with Evergrande and Country Garden. Now it has spread through 80% of the sector. Defaults. Delays. Abandoned sites. Evaporated equity.

Traders Union tracked the damage. Goldman Sachs confirmed it. If fully constructed, China’s current unsold housing inventory would be worth 93 trillion yuan. That is over $13 trillion in stagnant assets. Meanwhile, home sales are down more than 50% from their 2020 peak. Office occupancy in secondary cities is below 60%. Commercial real estate demand has vanished. It is not oversupply. It is absence.

Banks are drowning in bad loans. Small lenders are facing liquidity runs. Beijing has thrown credit at the problem. It dropped mortgage rates. It pushed local bailouts. It extended debt maturities. Nothing stuck. Goldman now expects housing prices to fall another 20% to 25% before bottoming out in late 2025. That means half the peak value erased in four years. And that is not a worst-case model. That is the base case.

Investors are moving out. Foreign direct investment into China is at a three-decade low. U.S. firms are halting expansion plans. Global pension funds are rotating away from Chinese property bonds. Commodity exports are soft. Steel production is down. Copper imports are slowing. Supply chain orders are contracting. The ripples are global.

Sources:

https://tradersunion.com/news/market-voices/show/327168-china-property-losses/

https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/articles/has-chinas-property-market-reached-the-bottom