In Depth December 30, 2009, 5:00PM EST

Mania on the Mainland

Think the U.S. real estate bubble was bad? China's could be worse

By Dexter Roberts

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(This story has been updated to include December data in the third paragraph.)

Beijing - Li Nan has real estate fever. A 27-year-old steel trader at China Minmetals, a state-owned commodities company, Li lives with his parents in a cramped 700-sq.-ft. apartment in west Beijing. Li originally planned to buy his own place when he got married, but after watching Beijing real estate prices soar, he has been spending all his free time searching for an apartment. If he finds the right place—preferably a two-bedroom in the historic Dongcheng quarter, near the city center—he hopes to buy immediately. Act now, he figures, or live with Mom and Dad forever. In the last 12 months such apartments have doubled or tripled in price, to about $400 per square foot. "This year they'll be even higher," says Li.

Millions of Chinese are pursuing property with a zeal once typical of house-happy Americans. Some Chinese are plunking down wads of cash for homes: Others are taking out mortgages at record levels. Developers are snapping up land for luxury high-rises and villas, and the banks are eagerly funding them. Some local officials are even building towns from scratch in the desert, certain that demand won't flag. And if families can swing it, they buy two apartments—one to live in, one to flip when prices jump further.

And jump they have. In Shanghai, prices for high-end real estate were up 54% through September, to $500 per square foot. In December alone, housing prices in 70 major cities rose 7.8%, while housing starts nationwide rose 34%.

The real estate rush is fueling fears of a bubble that could burst later in 2010, devastating homeowners, banks, developers, stock markets, and local governments. "Once the bubble pops, our economic growth will stop," warns Yi Xianrong, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Finance Research Center. On Dec. 27, China Premier Wen Jiabao told news agency Xinhua that "property prices have risen too quickly." He pledged a crackdown on speculators.

UNAFFORDABLE PRICES

Despite parallels with other bubble markets, the China bubble is not quite so easy to understand. In some places, demand for upper middle class housing is so hot it can't be satisfied. In others, speculators keep driving up prices for land, luxury apartments, and villas even though local rents are actually dropping because tenants are scarce. What's clear is that the bubble is inflating at the rich end, while little low-cost housing gets built for middle and low-income Chinese. In Beijing's Chaoyang district—which represents a third of all residential property deals in the capital—homes now sell for an average of nearly $300 per square foot. That means a typical 1,000-sq.-ft. apartment costs about 80 times the average annual income of the city's residents. Koyo Ozeki, an analyst at U.S. investment manager Pimco, estimates that only 10% of residential sales in China are for the mass market. Developers find the margins in high-end housing much fatter than returns from building ordinary homes.