Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

China mortgage boycott data erased by censors as crisis spreads

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 320 posts

Re: China mortgage boycott data erased by censors as crisis spreads

#61

Post by refurb »

ganyu wrote: post #27
CoastalCoder wrote: post #19

The linked story kind of buries the context info: > Nomura said the refusal to pay mortgages stems from the widespread practice in China of selling homes before they’re built. Funds from presales are kept in escrow accounts to use for construction. But confidence that projects will be completed has weakened as developers’ cash woes intensified. > “Inappropriate usage of presale proceeds and the lack of adequate super…

Short (?) intro for those who don't know how it works in CN: 1. Local govts are in heavy debt and sell land to pay back their debt. 2. Real estate corps pay a hell lot of money (don't care where they get them) to purchase a land ownership (for 70 years max) from the govt. 3. Before construction even begins, the real estate corps start selling the houses to citizens. 4. Citizens pay up to 40% of the total price on the…

To add on top, there are very few trustworthy investments available to citizens.

Real estate is one of the few assets that is quite secure when it comes to ownership.

Other Asian countries are similar. It’s why your average house in Saigon is more expensive than San Francisco despite a per capita GDP that is < 1/10th that of California.

Re: China mortgage boycott data erased by censors as crisis spreads

#62

Post by refurb »

elteto wrote: post #56
schleck8 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have faith in the party and the government. The party and the government will definitely give the people a satisfactory explanation, here is only for statistics, do not have excessive remarks! Then a link to a Mao speech. Weird

They have to remove the risk of being labeled anti-party or dissidents. They do this by appealing to the ideology, at least superficially. Of course, this is a double edge play. Notice how the message boils down to “the party is right! It’s probably the fault of some dark, greedy figure(s) somewhere!”. But by absolving the government from ever being wrong you remove the possibility of them ever improving and fixing t…

All problems in China are due to reactionary elements that are trying to overthrow the Party!

And since the Party represents all Chinese, these elements are clearly attacking the Chinese people themselves so the only solution is to rally around the Party and help it solve the problem!

/s

Re: China mortgage boycott data erased by censors as crisis spreads

#63

Post by zo1 »

ratsmack wrote: post #55
CoastalCoder wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from the fact that this is a pyramid scheme, it sounds pretty similar to how it works in the U.S. when building a new house.

Three years ago I built a house to sell (I was general contractor) on a city lot my family owned. Before a single shovel of dirt was turned over, we had to pay around seventy thousand dollars for plan review, power connection, water, sewer and gas. This really opened my eyes as to how much mitigation costs have risen over the years. I had built a house in the same area in 1989 and the initial costs were one tenth of…

Did most of that money go-to or was mandated-by your local government?

Re: China mortgage boycott data erased by censors as crisis spreads

#64

Post by mensetmanusman »

schleck8 wrote: post #47
toinewx wrote: post #3

the github repo mentionned in the article (16k stars): https://github.com/WeNeedHome/SummaryOfLoanSuspension

> Have faith in the party and the government. The party and the government will definitely give the people a satisfactory explanation, here is only for statistics, do not have excessive remarks! Then a link to a Mao speech. Weird

The protesting citizens do this as a plea for help from the national government. They know that the true believers in the national government need to be kowtowed to.

It is a risk to your life to protest the national government, but the national government allows protest to local governments as a means to reduce steam buildup.

This results in over the top worship of Mao during local government protests as a hedge, because it creates a potential photo op where the local government is tearing down praise to Mao.

Re: China mortgage boycott data erased by censors as crisis spreads

#65

Post by ratsmack »

zo1 wrote: post #63
ratsmack wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Three years ago I built a house to sell (I was general contractor) on a city lot my family owned. Before a single shovel of dirt was turned over, we had to pay around seventy thousand dollars for plan review, power connection, water, sewer and gas. This really opened my eyes as to how much mitigation costs have risen over the years. I had built a house in the same area in 1989 and the initial costs were one tenth of…

Did most of that money go-to or was mandated-by your local government?

Pretty much, yes.

Re: China mortgage boycott data erased by censors as crisis spreads

#66

Post by bombcar »

zo1 wrote: post #63
ratsmack wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Three years ago I built a house to sell (I was general contractor) on a city lot my family owned. Before a single shovel of dirt was turned over, we had to pay around seventy thousand dollars for plan review, power connection, water, sewer and gas. This really opened my eyes as to how much mitigation costs have risen over the years. I had built a house in the same area in 1989 and the initial costs were one tenth of…

Did most of that money go-to or was mandated-by your local government?

Lots of it is a tax on non-residents; because other tax forms are kept low but nobody "pays" for the permit costs, etc (it's wrapped in the cost of the house).

Re: China mortgage boycott data erased by censors as crisis spreads

#67

Post by bombcar »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #35
ganyu wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short (?) intro for those who don't know how it works in CN: 1. Local govts are in heavy debt and sell land to pay back their debt. 2. Real estate corps pay a hell lot of money (don't care where they get them) to purchase a land ownership (for 70 years max) from the govt. 3. Before construction even begins, the real estate corps start selling the houses to citizens. 4. Citizens pay up to 40% of the total price on the…

Aside from the fact that this is a pyramid scheme, it sounds pretty similar to how it works in the U.S. when building a new house.

The US will often have guarantees on a construction loan, and sometimes the bank will even inspect the property as it is being built and only release funds when certain points are hit - 30% to start, 20% when foundation is poured, 20% on framing, 30% on completion. And then the loan will be refinanced to a traditional mortgage (construction loans are usually short-term and higher rate).

Many builders will therefor "self-finance" and sell the customer a "built home" direct into a normal mortgage.

Re: China mortgage boycott data erased by censors as crisis spreads

#68

Post by rfoo »

itronitron wrote: post #52
ganyu wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short (?) intro for those who don't know how it works in CN: 1. Local govts are in heavy debt and sell land to pay back their debt. 2. Real estate corps pay a hell lot of money (don't care where they get them) to purchase a land ownership (for 70 years max) from the govt. 3. Before construction even begins, the real estate corps start selling the houses to citizens. 4. Citizens pay up to 40% of the total price on the…

9. Apparently banks in China are blocking people from removing money from their accounts.

It is not yet a widespread thing. For now.

Also, there is no evidence that the disappeared money goes into real-estate/local govt, though it is plausible.

Re: China mortgage boycott data erased by censors as crisis spreads

#69

Post by Animats »

sbierwagen wrote: post #32
ganyu wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short (?) intro for those who don't know how it works in CN: 1. Local govts are in heavy debt and sell land to pay back their debt. 2. Real estate corps pay a hell lot of money (don't care where they get them) to purchase a land ownership (for 70 years max) from the govt. 3. Before construction even begins, the real estate corps start selling the houses to citizens. 4. Citizens pay up to 40% of the total price on the…

>get it paid back in the NEXT 30 YEARS Why emphasize that? 30 year mortgages are common in the US. At current rates of 5.5%, the total paid in interest will be bigger than the original loan. Of course, most US mortgages are taken out on housing units that actually exist.

> Of course, most US mortgages are taken out on housing units that actually exist.

Construction is usually financed by a construction loan, at a higher rate than a mortgage, and the builder is the borrower. But not always. Here are some US failures from the 2008 housing crash.[1]

China has an unusual problem - the Party really, really doesn't like elections. For anything. But China has buyable apartments, which work like condominiums. Some organization has to run the building and maintain the common areas. That led to the creation of homeowners' associations with elected officials. This got party officials upset, and now efforts are being made to make HOAs subordinate to the local Communist Party units.[2]

[1] https://www.mortgagefit.com/construction/loan-default.html

[2] https://ebrary.net/153835/law/condominium_china

Re: China mortgage boycott data erased by censors as crisis spreads

#70

Post by newsclues »

stickfigure wrote: post #44
newsclues wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, just steal/copy GitHub and offer a local version with censorship, and ban the uncensored version.

If you're just trying to get the content, sure. If you want your citizens to be able to earn $ by working remotely for other companies around the world, this won't work.

It’s not about the content, it’s about CONTROL.

Control what people can say, share and do.

Obviously GitHub is essential an essential tool for modern day programers, and the CCP only needs to give the access to a version of that tool under the control of the CCP.

Post reply on HN