From Asia Times:
Housing privatization in Chinese cities, which only began in the early 1990s, has proceeded at an amazingly fast pace. After a mere 10-plus years, more than 80% of Chinese urbanites now own their dwellings.
While the Chinese media boasts that the proportion of private housing in Chinese cities is now higher than that in some advanced countries such as the US or the United Kingdom, analysts say the high degree of privatization in fact poses a challenge to Beijing’s policy of bringing down housing prices. And it also explains why the secondary housing market in China has remained inactive. [Full text]
