[barry-cotter]

Whatever about other parts of China I do not believe there are 10 year old developments in Shanghai with brand new apartments unless you mean people who are holding unfinished concrete shells as investments and there are some of those in central, lived in developments.

Getting any place within ten minutes taxi ride of a metro occupied is easy. Might be hard to sell it but you can rent it easy.

[baybal2]

It is exactly what it is. 400m2+ apartments overloaded with styrofoam barocco decorations, appliances, furniture, ready for people to move in, just sitting there and rotting. I saw photos myself: plastic parts yellowing, styrofoam curlies cracking, organic materials getting mouldy here and there, and centimetre thick layer of dust on everything.

When they were put on the market 10 years ago, they were sold at such unimaginable, even for China, markups that even multimillionaires would've not gone for them. It was clear that the only buyers for them would've been some nouveau riche suckers.

They will not find buyers these days anymore. The example above is still on the side of the extreme, but say 3-4 year old developments being 50% vacant is a norm for 200m2+ apartments.

[barry-cotter]

I find this difficult to believe. Chinese apartments are not sold furnished like you describe. They’re sold as bare concrete shells. Apartments like you describe are overwhelmingly rented, not sold. Usually when people buy a pre-owned apartment they strip it down to the concrete and redo everything.

[baybal2]

The market for 400m2+ apartments stands apart even among excesses of Chinese real estate market. Such were sold ready to live even 10 years ago.