[nl]

There isn't a lot of consensus about what the real situation with Chinese real estate is, and even less about what it means.

One thing to bear in mind is that China is still a developing economy, which means that it doesn't behave the same way as the US economy does.

Economic growth is high, inflation is 5% and population movement from the countryside into the cities is a huge factor.

There is a school of thought that a real estate bubble in China is not a significant problem - the driver of economic growth in China is the manufacturing sector, not real estate and a crash in property prices would just raise the standard of living for those involved in the manufacturing industry (ie, they could buy houses).

[nate_meurer]

If the data I have read is to be believed, the biggest driver of the growth of China's GDP is real estate investment. I have read this in many places, including here:

http://www.alsosprachanalyst.com/economy/nominal-vs-real-gdp...

[nl]

Your linked article doesn't even mention real estate investment(?)

(The title here is Nominal vs. Real GDP Growth Of China. "Real" - in this context - means "adjusted for inflation". Beyond that it is an interesting article but doesn't seem relevant to the real estate discussion at all)

[nate_meurer]

Read it again chump. You need to-- oh wait, damn, you're right.

Sorry. Try this instead. No real numbers, but perhaps a bit of inductive support:

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/136963/patrick-chovan...

[nl]

lol

Residential real estate construction now accounts for nearly ten percent of the country's total GDP -- four percentage points higher than it did at the peak of the U.S. housing bubble in 2005. Bullish analysts have long argued that large-scale urbanization and rapidly rising incomes warrant such an extraordinary boom.

10% of total GDP is significant, but when the economy is growing at 10% a year[1] it can afford to drop quite a lot without necessarily causing an economic meltdown.

To be clear - I'm not claiming that a drop in real estate prices won't cause problems for the entities involved in the Chinese real estate sector. What I am claiming is that it might not be as catastrophic as people expect based on the US experience.

[1] http://www.google.com.au/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9...