GUILIN, China, Sept 26 (Reuters) – For six months, Ms. Xu’s home has been a room in a high-rise apartment in the southern Chinese city of Guilin that she bought three years ago, attracted by brochures promoting its riverfront views. and the clean air of the city.
Their living conditions, however, are far from promising: unpainted walls, holes where there should be plugs, and no gas or running water. Every day he goes up and down several flights of stairs carrying heavy water bottles filled with a hose outside.
“All the family’s savings were invested in this house,” Xu, 55, told Reuters from the mansion complex in Xiulan County, his room bare except for a bed covered with mosquito nets, a few necessities and empty bottles on the floor. She declined to give her full name, citing the sensitivity of the matter.
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Xu and about 20 other buyers who live in the mansion in Xiulan County share a makeshift outdoor toilet and gather during the day at a table and benches in the central courtyard area.
They are part of a movement of home buyers in China who have moved into what they call “rotten” apartments, either to pressure developers and authorities to finish them or out of financial necessity, as numerous troubled builders of cash slow down construction amid the country’s deep crisis. real estate crash
The Shanghai E-House Real Estate Research Institute estimated in July that stalled projects accounted for 3.85 percent of China’s real estate market in the first half of 2022, equivalent to an area of 231 million square meters.
While some local governments have taken steps to shore up the housing market by setting up rescue funds, buyers like Xu, who paid deposits in advance and are in debt on their mortgages, remain in limbo.
MORTGAGE STRIKES
The proliferation of unfinished apartments has sparked an unprecedented mass civil disobedience, fueled by social media: In late June, thousands of homebuyers in at least 100 cities threatened to stop their mortgage payments in protest against stagnant construction.
The overall real estate market is very sensitive to cases of unfinished apartments because 90% of new homes bought in China are bought “without plans” while they are still under construction, said Yan Yuejin, director of research at Shanghai E -House.
“If this issue is not resolved, it will affect real estate transactions, the credibility of the government and could exacerbate the debt problems of developers,” he said.
China’s deep housing slump, coupled with disruptions caused by strict anti-Covid measures, are dragging down the world’s second-largest economy just as the ruling Communist Party prepares for its five-year congress next month.
“CASHING FROM PARADISE”
Xu bought his two-bedroom, 70-square-meter apartment in early 2019, about a year after its developer, Jiadengbao Real Estate, began construction and began marketing apartments for about 6,000 yuan ($851) per meter square, which they said would come with facilities. such as underfloor heating and a shared swimming pool.
Work progressed quickly at first, with blocks of the planned 34-tower complex going up one after the other.
But in June 2020, Jiadengbao Real Estate hit the headlines after a court accused its parent company of illegal fundraising and seized its properties worth 340 million yuan, including several apartments in the Xiulan County Mansion.
Construction halted in mid-2020, something Xu discovered months later, describing his feelings at the time as “crashing from paradise.”
Jiadengbao Real Estate did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Since the debt crisis erupted in 2021, thousands more homebuyers have been caught in similar situations as cash-strapped developers went bankrupt or abandoned struggling projects.
Fencing and parries
On a recent day, the main building block of Xiulan County Mansion was surrounded by a high blue fence while the clubhouse, promoted with promotional materials, was covered by dense undergrowth. Concrete piles, iron poles and piles of debris were scattered everywhere.
Xu, who is unemployed, said he bought the apartment for his only son, hoping he could raise a family there. She said her son and husband, who live far away in the northern province of Hebei, blame her for her financial situation and no longer speak to her.
“We don’t know how long we’ll have to live here because the government hasn’t said anything officially,” he said.
She hopes the Guilin government will step in to help.
The city government did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Housing authorities in Baoding, the northern city where Xu is from and where Jiadengbao Real Estate’s parent company is registered, said last November that the city government and the Communist Party committee had created a group to solve the problem.
“If the government really wants to protect people’s livelihoods and resume construction, we will go home,” Xu said.
(This story corrects the name of the expert in paragraph 9 to Yuejin)
($1 = 7.0508 Chinese Yuan Renminbi)
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Report by Eduardo Baptista and Xiaoyu Yin; Additional reporting by Beijing staff and Xihao Jiang; Lincoln Feast Edition.
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