[bgar]

>It seems like Asian cultures are much less likely to treat housing as an investment

Isn’t China one of the most prominent examples of using real estate as investment? There’s even whole ghost towns of apartment buildings that are constructed for this purpose.

[dmoy]

yea all my Chinese (in China) relatives assume you should only invest in housing. And then when we tell them we have zero investment properties, they get really, really concerned for our future welfare and think that we're not doing very well.

[Misdicorl]

Isn't all that investment outside of China? My understanding was ghost towns weren't investment based but planning failure based

[bobthepanda]

No, domestic savers have capital controls and do not have the means to move money easily outside the country. The stock market also is not reliable in China as an avenue of investment. Government pensions are also small. So that mostly leaves real estate.

Evergrande Group is emblematic of the real estate industry’s trouble there. Property is 15-30% of Chinese GDP and much of it goes towards investment property.

[Misdicorl]

Thanks!