Chinese property investors are facing a squeeze after a period of rapid house price inflation in the country’s leading cities.
Top policymakers announced in December that “houses are for living in, not for speculating with”. This was news to many citizens, for whom a house has become not only a place to live, but an investment, a pension plan, a status symbol and often a prerequisite for marriage.
The housing market is just one of many speculative investment routes for Chinese households seeking quick returns on investment. Over the past few years, amateur investors have piled in and out of a variety of the country’s nascent financial markets, buying up everything from company stocks to garlic futures.