2023-09-30 05:09:05
Madam Liu is losing her patience. The construction of his apartment is already more than a year late. In the middle of a huge construction site, mid-September, she scrutinizes her future home, halfway up a tower of around thirty floors, still made of raw concrete. “Look: there are only two workers for a building this big, it seems like they’re just making up the numbers”she says, pointing to the silhouettes active on a basket suspended from the facade.
When, in 2020, Mme Liu (in order to preserve her anonymity, she did not wish to give her first name) bought off plan in this residence located around thirty kilometers from the center of Xi’an, a metropolis in the province of Shaanxi, in central China, for 1.06 million yuan (135,000 euros), the real estate market was doing well. For her and her husband, accessing property was a way of settling down in their adopted city and ensuring the education of their children, thanks to the three schools and the college promised by the real estate developer of this immense project. , which is expected to have 17,000 apartments when completed.
Today, the family, who hoped to move in this summer, must not only repay their mortgage but also pay rent for their accommodation, amounting to 8,000 yuan in charges in total. “And we have to add 500 yuan of gasoline to take my sons to school”calculates, concerned, Mme Liu. Problem: her husband, who earned a good living as a bathroom equipment salesman, is also affected by the real estate crisis: “Today, he barely earns 20,000 yuan [2 500 euros, soit trois fois le revenu moyen à Xi’an]. Once everything is paid, the four of us barely have enough to live on. Next year, we will also have to pay for the older child who is going to high school… I don’t know how we’re going to do it”she worries.
“It’s worse than during the pandemic”
Month after month, the real estate crisis is worsening in China, dragging down most sectors of the economy. In August, real estate investments fell by 19.1% year-on-year, the eighteenth consecutive month of decline. It is one of the main engines of the economy which is stopping: until 2020, real estate and construction provided around 25% of Chinese growth. Even more if we add furnishings and raw materials.
Result, despite the abandonment of the zero Covid policy in 2022 and the end of confinements, the recovery, expected at the beginning of 2023, did not take place: growth was limited to 0.8% in the second quarter, exports are falling, and the youth unemployment rate is now kept secret after reaching a record in June at 21.3%.
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