While the word has focused on China’s disastrous stock market bailout and the devaluation of the currency, a far larger crisis is brewing in China’s hinterland.
China’s property bubble has sagged in the big cities like Beijing and Shanghai – but it is on the verge of popping completely in the country’s heartland. After spending a week in Sichuan Province, it is clear that land sales, prices and transactions are all declining in double digits.
Sichuan province is one of China’s largest, in the heart of the country. We spent some time at a residential project called Universal City Centre, about 20km from Chongqing. The 1.08m sqm property has seen prices fall one-third from 4,000 to 5,800 psm one-third to 3,000 to 4,000 psm.