China’s Housing Market Is Done: Record Lows, Guangdong Down Nearly 90%, Shanghai Rich Dump Mansions

Prices have crashed, everyone. Wealthy people in Shanghai are rushing to sell their luxury homes. At Shumao Riverside Garden in Little Lujiangzhuang, prices peaked at about 16,000 yuan per square foot. Now they're down to about 8,900 yuan per square foot. Some sellers have cut prices to about 7,000 yuan per square foot, a drop of 45%. At Yanlord Riverside City in Lianyang, prices fell from about 15,050 to 9,105 yuan per square foot, nearly 40%. At Zongqing Black Forest, and Putuo, prices dropped from about 10,685 to as low as 7,330 yuan per square foot. That's a 31% plunge. China's real estate market has struggled for years. The CCP recently introduced several major measures to support the market, promising to stabilize housing prices. Yet prices fell in 97 of 100 major cities in September. Homeowners in many areas say the declines have been staggering. Even in Shanghai, homes to many wealthy residents, homeowners have recently posted videos describing their losses. Has Shanghai's housing market really gotten this bad? I bought an apartment in Shiguang First Village in Shanghai's Yangpu District in 2019 for 2.89 million yuan. I thought prices would keep climbing. It would be something for me and my children to fall back on, right? and I could make a profit later. Now, forget about having something to fall back on. I feel like chopping off both my hands. I was walking around the neighborhood this morning and talked to another owner. They said I'd be lucky to get 2 million yuan for my place now. Think about that. I've lost almost 1 million yuan. My whole world has collapsed. I just saw that an apartment with the same layout as mine sold in our complex for more than 2 million yuan less than I paid. My god, all those years of hard work for nothing. I bought my apartment in Xinzhuang, Minhang District in 2021 for 5.8 million yuan. I borrowed 3.28 million yuan. I was getting married and I wanted a home of my own, somewhere I could feel secure. But last month, an agent told me that if I wasn't in a rush, I could list it for a little over 3 million yuan. Then I realized the sale price wouldn't even cover my original mortgage. For years, I've been afraid to buy or replace anything. I've been cutting back on everything just to pay the bank. I don't even know how to comfort myself. This real estate agent questioned the official figures. How far have Shanghai home prices really fallen? Official statistics make it look like just 20%, but the actual decline is much bigger. I'd say 99% of people who bought homes in Shanghai in 2018 or later are losing money. Those who bought at the peak in 2021 and 2022 have already lost their entire down payments. The picture is even worse in Guangdong province, according to industry insiders. Prices at Shirley's Silver Beach in Huizhou near Shenzhen have reportedly plunged nearly 90%, setting a recent record for the housing market. You can buy an ocean view apartment in Huizhou for just 150,000 yuan. You heard that right. That's not the down payment, that's the full price. A few years ago, the same apartment cost 1.3 million yuan. Going from 1.3 million to 150,000 yuan is a drop of nearly 90%. I'm talking about Country Gardens' Shirley Silver Beach. This oceanfront community, sometimes called Guangdong's Hegang, is experiencing an unprecedented price collapse. The vlogger said an Ocean View apartment that once sold for 1.3 million yuan is now advertised outside a real estate office for just 150,000 yuan. One owner bought a two-bedroom, 970-square-foot apartment in 2019 for 1.52 million yuan, at about 1,765 yuan per square foot. A comparable apartment is now listed for 288,000 yuan. Been on the market for almost a year, with barely any inquiries, prices have fallen so much because there are no buyers. The vlogger said many original buyers at Shirley Silver Beach were investors from Shenzhen, Hong Kong, and other parts of China. Developers brought prospective buyers in by the busload on free property tours. They promoted the area as Shenzhen's backyard, in a place where everything was just half an hour away. At its peak, more than 10,000 homes sold there in a single year, but local residents generally weren't interested. They either built their own homes or bought in downtown Huizhou. They had little reason to buy a damp, remote beach apartment with few nearby amenities. People still live in the community, mainly retirees and digital nomads, but most rent instead of buy. An ocean view apartment can rent for just a few hundred yuan a month. One calculation found that the annual property management fee alone for an 850-square-foot apartment is 3,033 yuan. The rent doesn't even cover that fee, let alone repairs. Salt in the sea air causes mold on walls and rust on appliances within six months. Moisture can even destroy closet doors. Over 10 years, maintenance and depreciation can add up to more than 30% of the original purchase price. And the biggest problem is that owners can't find buyers. Other properties have fallen from 1.1 million yuan to 170,000 yuan, or from about 1.52 million yuan to 222,000 yuan. Owners say they have suffered enormous losses. Some online commentators say these might be extreme examples. Still, Oceanview Homes in Huizhou that buyers once fought over are now worth only a fraction of their former prices. Many owners are desperate to sell, but who is still willing to buy? Huizhou was once one of China's most extraordinary housing markets. Between 2023 and 2025, existing home prices in Huiyang and Daya Bay fell a combined 30% to 50%. Some developers lost more than 50% of their value. Starting in the fall of 2025, more real estate agencies in areas near Shenzhen began posting notices that they were closing. By 2026, asking prices for existing homes were falling across Huizhou. In Daya Bay, the average asking price dropped to about 595 to 678 yuan per square foot, down more than 50% from its historical peak. In Huiyang, prices generally settled around 567 to 585 yuan per square foot. Outlying areas and coastal developments, such as Xiaoyong and Shirley's Silver Beach, are facing a severe shortage of buyers. Some homes purchased at peak prices in less desirable areas are now worth under 485 yuan per square foot. lower-quality ocean view apartments have fallen to roughly 279 to 372 yuan per square foot. Listings regularly show desperate owners trying to sell entire apartments for just 100,000 to 200,000 yuan or more. A man in Huizhou, Guangdong, posted a video saying, when it comes to vacant apartment buildings, very few cities can compete with Huizhou. I'm at a seaside vacancy complex in Huizhou. Everywhere you look, there are apartment buildings packed together. And they're all empty. Just empty buildings. The beach is only a few hundred yards away. Let's go inside one of these buildings and see what it looks like. Okay, I'm inside now. Look at these apartments. There are so many, but they're all empty. You hardly see anyone. Look at this pool. Maybe they drained it to save money because nobody maintains it anymore. I can hear something in the distance, but it's so deserted that the echo sounds kind of creepy. What would this place be good for now? That's right, filming a horror movie. Listen to that sound. There's nobody around. At the peak, these apartments sold for around 1,115 to 1,395 yuan per square foot. Now I doubt anyone would buy them at even 232 yuan per square foot. Why did they build so many apartments? Why was everyone so crazy about it back then? Every frenzy comes at a heavy price. Just look at how much wealth has been wiped out out here. The vlogger continued showing the inside of the complex. I finally found an elevator. Oh my god, is it broken? Wait, thank goodness, it still works. Oh here it comes. But it's full of trash. Is anyone even managing this property? Wow, the smell is awful. Is there still a management company here? I finally found the elevator lobby. It has this really old-fashioned stone finish. With everything so empty now, the whole place feels like something out of a horror movie. It really does. The vlogger rode a glass elevator with an ocean view. But the apartment buildings were mostly empty. Only a handful of homes were occupied, and he occasionally spotted elderly residents in the garden. The collapse is not limited to Shanghai and areas of Guangdong near Shenzhen. Housing prices have also plunged in Yanjiao outside Beijing. Yanjiao is part of the Sanhe City in Langfang, Hebei Province, near Beijing's Tongzhou District. Its proximity to Beijing once attracted buyers who worked in the capital but could not afford homes there. A financial vlogger wrote that in the fall of 2026, the windows of a Yanjiao real estate agency were covered in red price cut stickers. A two-bedroom apartment with windows facing both north and south was listed for 598,000 yuan. The manager said it had cost 4.18 million yuan in 2017. Few people came to look. Occasionally, someone stopped, glancing at their listing, shook their head, and walked away. The manager added, the price is negotiable. The same situation is unfolding in other suburban counties surrounding Beijing. The Chinese government introduced another round of property measures on August 28. These included promoting sales of completed homes, tightening oversight of developers' sales proceeds and loans, requiring dedicated accounts for project funds, introducing a lead bank system for developer financing. Some property development loans could now run as long as seven years, while the maximum term for individual home mortgages would increase from 30 to 40 years. China's property crisis continues to deepen. According to the Chinese government's latest figures, real estate development investment totaled 5.3 trillion yuan from January through September, down 20.6% from a year earlier. Residential investment fell 20.5% to 4.1 trillion yuan. That was a sharper decline than the 18% recorded in the first half of the year. From January through September, the total floor area of buildings under construction by developers reached about 60.8 billion square foot, down 12.8 percent year-over-year. Residential construction accounted for about 42.3 billion square foot, down 13.2 percent. New construction starts fell 25 percent to about 3.7 billion square foot. Residential starts declined 25.4 percent to about 2.67 billion square foot. Moody's warned that such a steep decline points to continued contraction in construction over the coming months, hurting related industries such as cement, steel, and home appliances. Completed floor space fell 25% to about 2.5 billion square feet. Residential completions dropped 26.6% to about 1.75 billion square feet. From January through September, sales volume of new commercial properties dropped 13% year-over-year to about 6 billion square feet. Residential sales volume fell 13.8%. Sales revenue from new commercial properties declined 14% to 5.4 trillion yuan, while residential sales revenue fell 13.7%. September figures show that new home prices in China's four largest cities—Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen—rose 0.1% from the previous month, the same pace as August. But prices continue to fall in smaller cities. Across all three city tiers, home prices remain below their levels a year earlier. On October 24th, a Shenzhen real estate vlogger asked how much further housing prices could fall after four straight years of declines. Home prices in Shenzhen have fallen hard over the last five years. Experts keep saying it's because the population is aging and the economy is weakening. But those aren't really the real reason prices haven't recovered. The downturn started in late 2022. In such a short time, birth rates and population ageing didn't suddenly change. What changed was our confidence in real estate. People no longer believe prices will rise. Shenzhen prices have been falling for three to four years. Every year, we hear that new policies are coming to save us, but the numbers just get worse. Purchase restrictions, subsidies, and all those announcements keep coming. They keep crying wolf, but the promised turnover never arrives. Research institutions generally see China's prolonged housing slump as one of the biggest challenges facing its economy. It has severely weakened consumer confidence and reduced local government revenue. Official figures show that nationwide land sale revenue fell 27.9% in the first three quarters of this year, compared with the same period last year. The decline shows how the property slump continues to strain local government finances. About 70% of Chinese household wealth is tied up in real estate. That makes the housing downturn especially damaging to ordinary families, although reliable official data on its effects are often unavailable. Stories of people who bought homes several years ago and are now facing steep losses can be found across China. A man in Jiangsu province recently shared his experience. Unfortunately, I was one of the last people to buy at the peak. In 2022, I felt pressure to get married. So I put down a deposit on a home worth 1.8 million yuan at the time. It wiped out almost all my family's savings. Most of that money was what my parents had worked so hard to save over the years. I also took out a 1.2 million yuan mortgage for 30 years. 1.2 million yuan, 30 years. With interest, the total cost of the apartment comes to more than 2.9 million yuan. Just looking at those numbers makes my heart ache. And what is the place worth today? I saw a real estate agent post at an identical apartment in the same complex, sold for 760,000 yuan. That's a loss of more than 1 million yuan. My heart just sank. If I had waited instead of buying, I could have saved over 1 million yuan by purchasing it just over 3 years later. I would have paid only a fraction of the original price. I can't even imagine how much better my life would be. I wouldn't have to worry about a mortgage payment of more than 5,000 yuan every month. I could buy a car I like. I could take my family on vacation every year. I wouldn't have to constantly give in to that boss I can't stand. I could be less anxious and take a break once in a while. But ever since I bought this apartment, all those things have been out of reach. He lamented. I miss out on every benefit and got stuck with every downside. This is what my life has become. My mortgage will dominate the next 30 years of my life. I don't think I'll ever be happy again. One commenter wrote, China's property market is basically a tool for the CCP to squeeze ordinary workers. The land belongs to the state. All you buy is a 70-year land use right. Officials get housing, while ordinary people take out 30-year loans. Land accounts for 70% of home prices. They sell land owned by everyone back to the public and profit without putting up anything themselves. Developers are the public face, but the government runs the game. As of September 2026, calculations by Time Horizon show that the median home price across 70 cities had fallen back to its January 2011 level. After 15 years, prices were back to where they started, but homeowners still owe the same mortgage debt. One vlogger observed when prices were rising, everyone talked about achieving financial freedom. When prices fall, people realize that a house is an asset, but a mortgage is a liability. So who really made money from China's real estate boom, and who is left paying the price? In another effort to revive the housing market, China's Ministry of Finance, Central Bank, and financial regulator jointly announced on September 29 that qualified first-time homebuyers would receive government mortgage interest subsidies starting October 1. The program was initially scheduled to run for one year, marking the first time the central government had subsidized individual home mortgages. It covers newly purchased first homes of no more than 1,292 square feet and a total price of no more than 1.5 million yuan. Loans of up to 1 million yuan qualify for a one-percentage-point annual interest subsidy for up to five years. One online commenter said, You're attracted by the interest savings, but they want your principal. It's a little bait to catch a big fish." Another wrote, The CCP uses subsidies for everything. Subsidies to make chips. Subsidies to buy electric cars. They never ask ordinary people. It's like a scammer offering a little reward first, then taking everything you have. Across China, economic anxiety is growing. The housing downturn has dragged on for years with no end in sight. Stable jobs are getting harder to find, especially for young people. Many households appear to be saving whatever they can in case conditions get worse. China analyst Wang He said the property market has not yet reached bottom, making a near-term or medium-term recovery in the broader economy unlikely. He also pointed to population decline and large-scale deaths, saying the CCP has not revealed the full picture. He believes China's actual population differs significantly from official figures, with potentially serious economic consequences.