Economy

The Boom, Bust and Future of China's Real Estate Sector

Thursday, February 2, 2023

The property sector in China, one of the key growth engines for the economy, has gone through a boom-and-bust cycle. Alicia García-Herrero of Natixis Corporate and Investment Banking and the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel considers the outlook for Chinese real estate in light of recent moves by regulators to lift restrictions on developers and the rebooting of the economy with the end of the zero-Covid strategy.

The Boom, Bust and Future of China's Real Estate Sector

Residential development in Kunming: Chinese households invested up to 80 percent of their wealth into real estate (Credit: Fabio Nodari / Shutterstock.com)

Since the global financial crisis in 2008, the real estate sector has emerged as one of the most important engines of growth in China’s economy, contributing more than even external exports. A huge investment binge in infrastructure and real estate resulted in a policy push away from external product demand. Housing prices consequently shot up at the speed of light. China’s well-known high saving ratio, together with capital controls, have been instrumental in channeling funds to finance the real estate bubble. Chinese households invested up to 80 percent of their wealth into real estate, and many bought up to several property units, depending on their ability to do so. 

As a result, Chinese real estate developers became the largest in the world – that is, until the bubble ended abruptly some 18 months ago. 

This decade-long real estate boom had several consequences. First and foremost, it contributed as much as one third of the growth in fixed asset investment and GDP growth in China during the period of 2010 to 2019. Second, it provided large amounts of cash to Chinese local governments through the sales of land to developers. This meant that they could fund many other projects such as international acquisitions of technological parks through their local champions.

Finally, as the price of land continued to increase and real estate developers were cut from bank financing in an attempt to rein in their increasing leverage, they had to find creative ways to finance themselves. This, together with local governments’ own needs to finance infrastructure projects, led to the rapid emergence of China’s shadow banking. 

Evergrande Plaza in Chengdu: China's largest developer in terms of assets defaulted on its external debt in the summer of 2021 (Credit: LP2 Studio / Shutterstock.com)

Evergrande Plaza in Chengdu: China's largest developer in terms of assets defaulted on its external debt in the summer of 2021 (Credit: LP2 Studio / Shutterstock.com)

Regulation challenges

Shadow banking and the related risks to financial stability proved to be a painful headache for regulators. Chinese leader Xi Jinping first attempted to regulate the property market’s excessive leverage in mid-2017. This proved counterproductive as it once again pushed real estate developers to find alternative sources of funding, leading them to the offshore bond market in Hong Kong and, most important, pre-sales from Chinese households. Chinese households’ savings and wealth became intertwined more and more with a bloated real estate sector which was four times as big – in terms of developers’ assets – as anywhere else in the world.

The fragilities of China’s real estate sector were buried over the years thanks to ample liquidity in the financial sector and high economic growth. These suddenly became visible when Chinese regulators began to react to the ever-increasing housing prices and the related deterioration of housing affordability and income distribution.

It was not until the summer of 2020, during a period when China seemed to have won its war against the pandemic while the rest of the world was struggling, that an emboldened regulator decided to introduce the so-called “three red lines” guidelines to limit developers’ leverage. These financial guidelines relating to the ratio of debt to cash, equity and assets proved to be a risky move. It was clear that some developers including China’s – and the world’s – largest in terms of assets, Evergrande, would not be able to withstand the pressure,

Shanghai lockdown, May 2022: The negative impact on the economy of China's zero-Covid strategy may be a reason why policymakers decided to lift restrictions on real estate developers (Credit: Graeme Kennedy / Shutterstock.com)

Shanghai lockdown, May 2022: The negative impact on the economy of China's zero-Covid strategy may be a reason why policymakers decided to lift restrictions on real estate developers (Credit: Graeme Kennedy / Shutterstock.com)

This came as a shock for investors, both in China and globally. Evergrande had as much as US$300 billion in outstanding debt, 10 percent of which was with overseas investors. The rippling effects of Evergrande’s default on its external debt in the summer of 2021 resulted in several other developers defaulting, and there was a collapse in housing transactions. This progressed into negative double-digit growth and to a rapid correction in housing prices.

In addition, mortgage boycotts emerged in the first half of 2022 as a direct consequence of households having deployed their savings for large down-payments on projects that developers with payment difficulties had not managed to complete. While such mortgage defaults have remained rather subdued so far, they point to financial stability as a key risk for China to monitor down the road.

Looking forward

Chinese policymakers have decided to go back to square one and lift the regulatory restrictions on real estate developers such as the “three red lines”. The irony is that zero-Covid and its negative impact on the Chinese economy might be the reason why. In other words, simultaneously dealing with Covid as well as the demise of the real estate sector ended up being too much to swallow for China, leading the way to a recovery of the sector. 

It goes without saying that the structural weaknesses of China’s real estate sector remain in place. Households are likely to remain wary of this and will probably not invest money as easily as in the past. This means that housing transactions will probably never recover to previous levels. Still, such lifting of regulatory pressure should offer some support for the sector in 2023, attracting speculative investors for the sector. The consequence of all of this, though, is that there will be more leverage to clean up eventually. Housing affordability will not improve as quickly as expected, which does not bode well for the Chinese government’s objective of achieving “common prosperity”.

Opinions expressed in articles published by AsiaGlobal Online reflect only those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of AsiaGlobal Online or the Asia Global Institute

Author

Alicia García-Herrero

Alicia García-Herrero

Natixis Corporate and Investment Banking, Bruegel and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Alicia García-Herrero is a senior fellow at the European think-tank Bruegel. She is also the chief economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis, and a non-resident senior follow at the East Asian Institute (EAI) of the National University Singapore (NUS). Alicia is also adjunct professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). Finally, she is a member of the Council of Advisors on Economic Affairs to the Spanish Government and an advisor to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s research arm, the Hong Kong Institute for Monetary and Financial Research (HKIMR), among other advisory and academic positions. In previous years, Alicia held the following positions: chief economist for emerging markets at Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA), member of the Asian Research Program at the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), head of the International Economy Division of the Bank of Spain, member of the Counsel to the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, head of emerging economies at the Research Department of Banco Santander, and economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Alicia has maintained a part-time academic life throughout her career as visiting professor at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at John Hopkins University, at the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in Shanghai, and Carlos III University in Madrid, among others. Alicia holds a PhD in economics from George Washington University and has published extensively in refereed journals and books (her publications can be found in ResearchGate, Google Scholar, SSRN or REPEC).

Alicia is also very active in international media (Bloomberg and CNBC among others) as well as social media. Alicia was included among the Top Voices in Economy and Finance by LinkedIn in 2017 and was ranked sixth on the Global Social Media 100 list by Refinitiv in 2020.


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