Cross posted from Investing in Chinese Stocks:
The latest research is from China Household Finance Survey and says that nationwide, empty homes make up more than 20% of the housing stock. Of these, the vast majority are investment properties. As this first chart shows, families with only one empty home have are responsible for about 5% of vacancies.
People with multiple empty homes are responsible for the bulk of vacancies. Overall, the vacancy rate is very high and CHFS estimates there are ￥4.2 trillion in mortgages backing these empty homes.
This sample was taken from 29 provinces, 262 counties, 1,048 communities, and the researchers believe it is statistically significant.
A comparison by nations at various times:
Here’s empty homes by geography: East, Central and West China. Note the same breakdown as the first chart.
Empty homes by tier: first, second and third, with the third-tier cities in the worst shape.
A breakdown by city:
Here’s the vacancy rate for commercial housing 商品房, the new homes built by commercial developers:
Here’s a breakdown by type. The first is 商品房, the next may be very similar to 商品房, but it is lower priced homes built as part of government policy. Teardowns are the homes built for people who have their homes demolished. Housing reform related to people who received homes from the government as part of SOE reform or purchased formerly public housing.
Here’s affordable housing vacancies by income, lowest to highest, left to right.
Empty home ratios by area:
Empty home ratio as percentage of household assets (right):
This chart shows the risk of losses on occupied versus empty homes in various price decline scenarios, from no drop to a 50% drop.
Here’s a projection of credit risk, the insolvency rate in various price decline scenarios.
