Good. The way it should be. Housing is not wealth storage, it’s a place to live.
Let’s hope this fall spreads out of China.The kiwis in New Zealand have seen the prices fall by a third iirc
15% lower than it’s all time 2022 peak right now
Because everyone is fucking off to Australia.
It’s great for people who want to buy a house, great for ultra rich that want to buy out more property, but absolutely fucking people who just bought a house not too long ago.
If you just bought (assuming standard 30 yr mortgage), all you have to do is hold through it. Refinance if that becomes favorable.
The only losers are those who are free and clear or toward the end of their mortgage AND looking to utilize the equity they built up, OR anyone looking to sell. The solution is time, which can kinda suck, but it’s vastly preferable to not having a place to live.
The solution is only time if market starts bubbling again, like it did after the last crash. Its also possible for asset prices to stagnate for decades, and its happened before.
I feel like people forget that a significant portion of America lives in a place where the cost-of-living isn’t ridiculously high. A housing crash might make houses slightly more affordable in San Francisco, but it would be economically devastating to the interior of the country.
Honestly it probably wouldn’t even be that great for people who wanted to buy a house. Banks aren’t likely to start handing out mortgages to people who couldn’t afford the house a couple weeks ago in what is now a volatile market, and you would still be competing with companies who could pay cash.
why? yiu bought a home to live in right ? you can still live in it. thet they’re now cheaper for other folks who couldn’t afford a home before, is a good thing.
These are Mom and pop speculators. There are entire cities in China with empty housing bought on speculation. The appeal of free money was too great.
The problem is that a lot of Chinese elderly used housing as a storage of wealth.
A few years ago in China a guy went viral on billibilli (their version of YouTube) for covering how hard it was to be retired in China. The CCP took his Channel away and censored him. Funnily enough in the years since the CCP has made strides in increasing the payout of their social security system.
So they censored him and then responded to the criticism anyway.
Honestly --minus the censorship-- I wish the US would handle it this way. Stop relying on 401ks and housing value to backstop peoples retirement and increase social security payouts. The elderly have earned their right to take a break from the grind of capitalism. They should be relaxing and passing on what they’ve learned from their time on earth to the next generation.
So they censored him and then responded to the criticism anyway.
Being criticized meant they were losing face. Saving face is very important in many Asian cultures.
Stop relying on 401ks and housing value to backstop peoples retirement and increase social security payouts
Not gonna work in an aging society unfortunately. Social security payouts come from current taxes. If you don’t have enough young people, you can’t really fund social security. If you have a national pension fund that collects money for your retirement as YOU work, it’s not too different from a 401k, the only difference is who has control over it. Most countries don’t do that though.
Fun story: My country has a system similar to 401k (it has deferred taxation, reduced taxation and government matching, so basically free money), but you couldn’t take money out of it until retirement… Until a few years ago when conservatives changed it, so now you can take money out, but if you do, you pay full taxes and you can’t resume payments for 10 years. At least a third of the country took that opportunity. Our equivalent of social security hasn’t been significantly increased and in fact retirement age is being raised by roughly a month a year currently because otherwise the system would become unaffordable. At this point I’m considering cashing mine in in a few years only because I’m afraid that if the conservatives get enough power they’ll manage to pass some stupid ass law taking away everyone’s funds and using it to fund increased social security for their current old voters, at which point I’ll just lose all of it unlike the people who have taken theirs out.
All forms of retirement are funded by current workers. Social security is just more honest about it. A retired person is still consuming goods and services produced by the working without producing anything themselves.
You’re presenting your argument as if it were fact. Which is how conservatives always try to frame their arguments around social security.
Basic question, if its so impossible for it to work why is China able to do it?
Basic answer, it’s not impossible – it just requires a progressive taxation for social security where the rich pay into it more. Which is why conservatives are so against it.
Look man, money is fake the only question that ultimately matters is ‘can we produce enough stuff?’. Which in the context of modern industrial production the answer is ‘in most cases, yes’.
Certainly in terms of producing enough housing and food for the elderly the answer is yes. The only place where there might be a limitation for the elderly is healthcare. If you gotta problem with that maybe we should adopt Cuba’s healthcare system. They have more doctors per capita than any other nation on earth in spite of decades of crippling sanctions. Before Trump reintroduced the blockade they also had higher life expectancy than the US.
Increase social security payouts with what?
Yes, everyone should have a pension plan, but you have to pay into that.
No you don’t, money is fake, we made it up.
Maybe a pension system should be managed that way for inflationary reasons. But money does not exist until the state spends it into the economy. Dollars do not exist in nature.
Building and renting out should be profitable. Else nothing is built for renters. Problem is companies buying homes (not building) and try to bribe local politics to upgrade zoning laws for more profitable housing (more flats per m2 land, less living quality). There are cases where lots should be merged for upgrading zonings but this should come from the communities needs not companies’ greeds.
The result is property developers buying up swathes of land and leaving it vacant until the market reaches a frenzy and they can charge an unholy price for their crappy tract homes built by subcontractors under extreme cost reduction pressures. It doesn’t meet market demand, not remotely.
Zoning and local councils are certainly complicit.
Nothing should be profitable outside helping your fellow men. Fuck Capitalism. Scientific Socialism is the only sustainable way forward.
The Chinese government made this happen to help the lower classes with home ownership. So, maybe we could use our unique rights structure to convince those with the levers here, to pull them.
There was another thing the Chinese did to landlords that we could try too
Yes, let’s.
Sounds great, normalisation is required for many housing markets. Prices of a basic utility inflated due to speculation is the actual dangerous condition we are very comfortable with and viewed as security in many countries.
Unfortunately, in China housing is the only thing they’re legally allowed lowed to “invest” in. There is no stock market, you can’t own land, you can’t buy land in foreign countries (legally). So when their market crashes 20% that’s the equivalent of the NSDAQ, housing, and subsidies markets all crashing 20% in a day, which is like beginning great depression type stuff.
That’s quite exactly the opposite of what’s true actually.
The Beijing Stock Exchange and Shanghai Stock Exchange are in fact stock markets, and they can buy land legally in many countries (there’s no Chinese law prohibiting it at least, local laws in some countries may ban foreigners from buying land). They (their rich, not common people) buy housing in other countries because it’s viewed as a better and safer investment (also because buying a home in China is a 70 year lease)
Beijing Stock Exchange and Shanghai Stock Exchange
just to clarify, wasn’t there a rule that only chinese citizens can invest in chinese companies or sth? except for special permits like joint ventures with western companies etc.
All those words for lies, wow.
…no? https://english.sse.com.cn/
there’s also a bond market.
Oooh, could we get some of that?
I wonder how many people on Lemmy want to move to China based on what they’ve heard about it on this collective network or in their own circles. How many of those people would be sorely disappointed if they did?
A lot of them come across as Ariel in Disney’s The Little Mermaid. They have an incomplete understanding of China and also likely have legitimate reasons to not want to live where they are.
Tbf, I’d move to China permanently in a heartbeat, based on more than a decade of working there. If China ever lets foreigners buy property, I’ll be first in line.
I wouldn’t touch the US with a hundred foot pole, on the other hand.
accurate representation of an average lemmy.zip user.
That’s nice. When I was a kid my dad worked in China, and they confiscated our passports, so we literally had to flee the country.
So there’s also that side of the coin.
So like ICE, then?
My dad had a work visa for a company and when his contract was up they held his passport saying he was to continue working for the company.
So no. Not like ICE.
Also, we’re talking about China, not how shit America is right now. Maybe try and stay on topic.
I’m not sure why you think your dad is the fucking topic to be honest.
Because you’re pretending like China is some fucking paradise when they literally tried to keep my family from leaving the fucking country?
We had to hide in a shipping freighter to get out of the country. But sure, go ahead and move to China, citizen.
If you don’t want people to respond to your room temperature take on something don’t post it.
I don’t believe you.
so did the company withhold the passport or the chinese government?
The company and government officials were involved from what my mom told me.
No, they were not put into concentration camps or shot dead.
i wouldn’t move to china mostly because i have a social connections here, i don’t speak chinese (and at this rate i’m never gonna learn it even though i’m fascinated by it). and also because i ideologically think that mass migration is a very bad thing with bad consequences for the environment. we need to solve our problems at home.
I’ll have what they’re having.
Been in China many times for weeks at a time. DO NOT WANT TO LIVE HERE.
Interested in your experience, what went wrong?
It’s just lots of small things. I still like it and have been to more cities than 99% of Chinese people themselves but permanent residence? Hell no. Gimme my freedom of movement, speech, and press. No Omni surveillance, gimme walkable city areas, no endless honking, orderly lines, patience, respect for servers, etc. You should definitely visit and enjoy the culture, food, language, and people but moving here is not something that is going to suit many that weren’t born into it. Everything requires an app and with no Play store rules everything relentlessly abuses you and spies on you. Facial recognition to pay for Walmart even, Christ. Plus if you’re any kind of beef eater this is a really bad place to be lol. Steak is cheap but it’s vastly inferior.
And how many times were you robbed or shot?
Lol never in the thirty five countries I’ve been to
Have you been to shenzhen? I’m planning a trip there and want to know what it’s like. Endless honking will be a problem for me, darn. Also disappointed to hear the cities aren’t walkable
I don’t know where he’s been, but the cities are perfectly walkable in my experience. They in general are far more walkable and have far better public transport than any significant city in North America (yes, any,) while probably not being as cosy as European cities.
Most of his complaints are basically “Asia” though. With the possible exception of Singapore - one of the dullest places on Earth - you’re not going to get far anywhere on this continent if you hate noise, scooters, traffic, humidity, and far too many people in too small a place.
Which is fine, it’s an acquired taste. I for one love it, Asian megacities are glorious to me - but if you hate it that’s OK too, but it’s hardly a China problem.
The app nonsense is China exclusive and puts them behind every country in the world nearly.
Everyone takes didi nobody takes public transit unless the line is close or they real poor. Still many gray taxis. Traffic and parking garages erryday. Sometimes you can’t get a car at all.
“nobody takes public transit” brother now I know you’re cosplaying.
Lol I’m literally typing this from liaoning province playa
To be honest, this nonsense tells me more that you have struggled to actually make any friends in China and are living in a bubble of your own making, than it says anything about China itself.
I suspect you’d have similar problems anywhere.
Pretty much the opposite. I’m a freewheeling extrovert that makes friend easily and am very well traveled globally. Anyway, it’s a logical fallacy to try and attack me personally when you don’t agree with what I’ve seen. China and the US have a lot of similarities and car culture is definitely one of them. The bus system is fairly unpleasant so unless you fortunately live where the metro is conveniently walkable you’re likely driving either a car or scooter pretty regularly. I will say the upside of the omni surveillance is that China’s roadways have civilized rapidly and now created a much larger gap between them and India due to auto ticketing. I was pretty surprised at how fast that happened. Taiwan is probably where I’d recommend if you want China without most of its downsides.
Yeah a couple times, more international than other places but hot and humid as a fat guys armpits.
Time to buy a vacation home in China?
Breaking news, looks like I’m applying for Chinese citizenship.
