[sk0g]

The apartment I lived in before had a few hundred sold, with most sitting empty. The building managers mentioned most of the owners were Chinese, and would rather not rent it out than drop the rent prices, so they had to constantly carry out inspections on apartments that had never been lived in, for a few years now.

Absolutely depressing. The bit that weirded me out most was the post boxes. They were quite big, but about half of them were overflowing, which had to have been the result of a few years of accumulation at least.

If the buying price was 40-50% lower, I could save up for a deposit in a year or two, but the crazy house prices here in Australia are not getting any better at all. It also feels morally wrong to be investing at the cost of someone being able to afford a roof over their heads, so maybe renting it is for me.

Of course, the city also is going to be hosting the Olympics in a while, so that solidifies my moving away plans!

[refurb]

Buying a house and leaving it empty is incredibly common in China and other Asian countries. You’ll see entire developments with nobody living there and most of the units unfinished inside.

The reason I was told was:1) with crappy equity markets property is a safer investment, 2) not many questions about where the money comes from, 3) very low or non-existent property taxes (costs nothing to hold) and 4) as these countries get wealthier demand for housing only goes up.

[sdenton4]

Move into one of the flats with an overflowing box and get it by adverse possession...