> There is enough vacant housing in China to house Spain.
This sounds bad off-hand but you have to consider the scale of China. Spain's population is roughly 3% of China. 3% of the US population is 10 million, which is less than the 16 million vacant homes in the US (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/10/realestate/vacancy-rate-b...). And that's still a generous comparison since more than 1 person lives in a home.
~90% of people in China are homeowners [1]. China's investments are extremely disproportionately R/E compared to other countries (70% vs 35% for the US) [2].
The CCP has immense pressure to prop this bubble up, and they have many options:
* Lower lending standards (you need to put 25% down to buy a house in China, but only 3.5% in the US)
* Lower interest rates (mortgage rates are negative in some parts of Europe, but ~5%+ in China)
This sounds bad off-hand but you have to consider the scale of China. Spain's population is roughly 3% of China. 3% of the US population is 10 million, which is less than the 16 million vacant homes in the US (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/10/realestate/vacancy-rate-b...). And that's still a generous comparison since more than 1 person lives in a home.