Economics

Abandoned Projects Shatter Confidence in China’s Home Market

  • Slowdown threatens practice of pre-selling apartments
  • Crisis centering on Evergrande leaves homebuyers in limbo
Construction cranes by unfinished buildings at China Evergrande Group’s Health Valley development on the outskirts of Nanjing on Oct. 22.Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
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Construction cranes stand idle in China’s Yunnan Province, on the easternmost edge of the Himalayas. Building has ground to a halt on Hainan, off the coast of Vietnam, and up in Heilongjiang, along the Russian border.

Across China, tens of millions of square feet of unfinished apartment buildings -- the legacy of a real estate boom gone awry in 2021 -- are derailing countless dreams of owning a home.