[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.