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China’s property giant Evergrande files for bankruptcy protection in Manhattan

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Re: China’s property giant Evergrande files for bankruptcy protection in Manhattan

#31

Some real estate related news from China: - Country garden, China's second biggest property company after Evergrande, missed a mere 22.5M payments for dollar denominated bonds. It is trying to restructure a $340B debt owned. https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/chinas-government-... - Li Ka Shing, richest man in Hong Kong, just offered an immediate 30% off on his newest buildings for sale - One of China's bigges…

>- China's fertility rate dropped to record low 1.09 in 2022 >- China records fewest marriages in more than 3 decades

Wow, at this rate, they might just overtake South Korea for lowest birth and marriage rates within the decade.

Re: China’s property giant Evergrande files for bankruptcy protection in Manhattan

#32

Some real estate related news from China: - Country garden, China's second biggest property company after Evergrande, missed a mere 22.5M payments for dollar denominated bonds. It is trying to restructure a $340B debt owned. https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/chinas-government-... - Li Ka Shing, richest man in Hong Kong, just offered an immediate 30% off on his newest buildings for sale - One of China's bigges…

The economic crisis has been brewing for a long time. No country can just ignore basic economics forever. They have been living off of borrowed time (and borrowed money) for a while now. The bill will come due soon. This is eerily similar to what happened to Japan in the 1990s.

Re: China’s property giant Evergrande files for bankruptcy protection in Manhattan

#33

Some real estate related news from China: - Country garden, China's second biggest property company after Evergrande, missed a mere 22.5M payments for dollar denominated bonds. It is trying to restructure a $340B debt owned. https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/chinas-government-... - Li Ka Shing, richest man in Hong Kong, just offered an immediate 30% off on his newest buildings for sale - One of China's bigges…

Government control over reproduction leads to unintended consequences? Who would've seen that coming?

Re: China’s property giant Evergrande files for bankruptcy protection in Manhattan

#34
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed a crash in China would have fallout but not 08/09. The Chinese housing market was fueled by the familial need to own a house. Which led people to lead no matter what people would buy property, basically "stocks always go up"... "housing always goes up"... We can never run out of buyers!

isn't the chinese market even more messed up because people are buying houses that don't exist yet, at least in 08/09 there was something, the asset itself, while overvalued did at least have some value, in china a lot of people just own and are paying a mortgage on a future promise.

This is semi-common practice and obviously when "done correctly" can work out.

An over simplification of Evergrande's issue two key issues are 1. Housing always goes up, but that alone is just a thought it needs an action. The action is 2. they used the sales of an unbuilt, future property to fund an existing, active project.

Again, a relatively common practice, but this is a form of leverage. It allows insane growth because you can start projects way before than you would normally. Of course they were levered up so hard that once the housing market cooled they couldn't sell future projects which then could not fund current ones etc etc.

While it sounds like a ponzi scheme, it's not since "if all the projects" completed then everyone who bought a house would have a house and all peoples would be happy.

Re: China’s property giant Evergrande files for bankruptcy protection in Manhattan

#35

Some real estate related news from China: - Country garden, China's second biggest property company after Evergrande, missed a mere 22.5M payments for dollar denominated bonds. It is trying to restructure a $340B debt owned. https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/chinas-government-... - Li Ka Shing, richest man in Hong Kong, just offered an immediate 30% off on his newest buildings for sale - One of China's bigges…

I heard someone on the radio recently speculate that due to the political climate China could prefer and produce a Japanese style decades long unwinding of economic bubbles vs a western style resolution through crisis. Of interest also was the level of Municipal debt and it's stratification between provincial higher default risks and a handful of real high flyers.

Re: China’s property giant Evergrande files for bankruptcy protection in Manhattan

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed a crash in China would have fallout but not 08/09. The Chinese housing market was fueled by the familial need to own a house. Which led people to lead no matter what people would buy property, basically "stocks always go up"... "housing always goes up"... We can never run out of buyers!

If the comment above regarding a fertility rate of 1.09 is correct, then yes, you can run out of buyers, and are well on the way to doing so.

mmm you would need a fertility rate of like 20x something like 20 yrs ago to keep up.

you can saturate a market with houses way faster than pop out kids even at a modest growth 2.5x birth rate.

a bunch of middle class families had 3 or even 5 properties all with mortgages and so many of them weren't even built yet. who needs sustainability.

Re: China’s property giant Evergrande files for bankruptcy protection in Manhattan

#37

Some real estate related news from China: - Country garden, China's second biggest property company after Evergrande, missed a mere 22.5M payments for dollar denominated bonds. It is trying to restructure a $340B debt owned. https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/chinas-government-... - Li Ka Shing, richest man in Hong Kong, just offered an immediate 30% off on his newest buildings for sale - One of China's bigges…

"China's sliding yuan could be next 'black swan event' for markets, hedge fund EDL says": https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/chinas-sliding-yu...

It would be interesting to see the blast radius, specifically in terms of countries like Russia, which is becoming increasingly dependent on the yuan as it is exiting its relations with the West , huffing and puffing: https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/88926

Re: China’s property giant Evergrande files for bankruptcy protection in Manhattan

#38
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism, like socialism, or postmodernism, or the labels conservative or liberal are almost devoid of meaning. But please, both the parent commenter and you keep arguing what the true meaning of capitalism is. Meanwhile I will head to the market and barter some of my guns for butter.

The problem with these terms is not that they have no meaning, it's that they have no context-free virtue. Prohibiting leaded gasoline is good and prohibiting housing construction is bad, even if they're both government regulations. Competitive markets are good and concentrated markets are bad, even if they're both markets. But people want to assign a label to the category instead of the instance, and then they fight…

that's a pretty deep meta level observation, the wrestling with a category to sully it with bad associations.

Re: China’s property giant Evergrande files for bankruptcy protection in Manhattan

#39
post #9

There is a sort of balance where one market going down makes another go up. For example, real estate assets everywhere but China now look better in the long term. Bank crashing = money printing = asset values go back up. Can't lose.

> Bank crashing = money printing = asset values go back up. Can't lose. If you buy real estate right before a housing crash, you immediately lose a lot of money vs. having just sold or not bought it, and even if the prices recover in the long term it can take years. Meanwhile you can't refinance the loan at the new lower rates because you're underwater and no longer have the collateral for a loan that size. Then ther…

I should have been more clear - this is to indicate that "we" can't lose, meaning society as a whole. Individuals for sure can lose their shirts, but overall, this bank collapsing won't be an issue.

This bankruptcy happening and not causing a huge, devastating, world ending crash is a gigantic feature of the Chinese economy. Not a bug. It means asset values in China are deflating in a semi-controlled manner.

People love to complain about the banks that are "too big to fail". Now this huge company that should really be too big to fail is failing, and the world isn't ending. The only people who are upset that everything isn't tumbling down, are the ones hoping for the crash.

Re: China’s property giant Evergrande files for bankruptcy protection in Manhattan

#40

Some real estate related news from China: - Country garden, China's second biggest property company after Evergrande, missed a mere 22.5M payments for dollar denominated bonds. It is trying to restructure a $340B debt owned. https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/chinas-government-... - Li Ka Shing, richest man in Hong Kong, just offered an immediate 30% off on his newest buildings for sale - One of China's bigges…

Yes, it is not looking good for their outlook. That said, nobody is seriously claiming Chinese youth unemployment at 50% unless you are looking at something like labor force participation rate, which is then a similar number for the US as well.

No, it can actually be 50%. Why do you think that's not serious? Greek youth unemployment was at 60% during their peak debt crisis. China's mega debt tsunami is starting to slam the shores right now.

China already tried its hardest to suppress youth unemployment rates. Student councillors in China are given strict KPIs to ensure their students graduate with a job. So obviously they co-operate with shady companies that give out sham employment contracts, and then pressure the student to sign, all to give out an impression of 'graduate employment'

China faces a severe crisis of over-education. China educated many university graduates, but has no industry to actually absorb them (Many such industries were crushed by the government, such as gaming, tech, or education).

China's factories desperately need cheap labour (and are starting to lose competitiveness because of this), but the over-educated grads are absolutely unwilling to go back to the factory floor like their parents. So you have millions of grads all dreaming of sitting in a prestigious office job, where none exists, so instead they all compete for government jobs, where there's 1 role for 100 applicants.

The Chinese government is already enforcing a streaming system in middle school, with at most 50% of students going to high school, rest going into technical education, but its too little too late.

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