| Ah my bad, my brain was reading Snail House [0], a popular fiction that got adapted to an even popular tv series and its theme is on living in Chinese apartments. While nail house is the Chinese version of holdout [1], and it exists everywhere. In China it is never regarded positively but always linked with forced eviction [2]. The eminent domain rule requires market rate compensation, which is not possible in many cases because of state ownership and the dual rural-urban land system. It is basically how China financed its growth for around three decades, get rural lands paying out penny, then sell it to some developer for a fortune. For the land use right duration I believe it has always been 70 yrs [3]? Renewal or not is not a big problem right now, because real estate took off in the 90s, so we still have four decades to go and see. For foreigner China can be a bit on the rosier side, because of their subtle reverse-racism? Like in universities the dorm for international students is better than the domestic ones, and where expats live is usually a nicer part of the town. Nevertheless, among my Chinese colleagues one the top reasons for immigrating to US is always better and cheaper housing. A couple years back I was surprised to learn that a modest ~700 sqft apartment in Shanghai or Peking easily went for $1M! Since then they had an almost 50% crash post covid but still, impressive. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwelling_Narrowness [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holdout_(real_estate) [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_requisition_in_China [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_law_in_China#Obtainin... |
Here is the nytimes article about the Wenzhou leases, they were 20 years (I got that detail wrong):
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/26/business/china-wenzhou-la...
China did forced evictions back in the 90s and they were received very poorly, so they whiplashed in the other direction of never doing forced evictions. Western media just focuses on the former though, not the corrections.
I am as much as a critic about China as I defend it. Its problems are overbuilding, the hukou system is still trash, no property tax that would discourage speculation and empty apartments, etc… But property rights are still strong, the government feels it’s very important, and development occurs at a rapid clip, the China I left 10 years ago is already very different and no longer as poor.