Inflation-adjusted home prices in China have fallen below where they started two decades ago, and the fiscal fallout is hitting local governments even harder than developers.
No it does not cancel out, because when you lose money on your old house, you are left with that debt.
And having that debt makes it impossible to take a loan for a new house.
I’ve seen this work out in practice up to 10 years after the housing bubble burst in 2008. Where we visited many foreclosures people couldn’t afford to keep, and couldn’t afford to move away from. It’s a very bad debt trap that I think maybe USA has regulation to get out of, but IDK if other countries have that, we for sure don’t have it here.
Well no, not really. If they’ve turned their savings into a house, and they still have a house, and they could still move house if they wanted, they’ve lost nothing if the notional value of that house goes down.
(Just as most people don’t actually get any richer when the notional value of their house goes up - once you have a house you tend to always need a house; selling up to move into rented accomodation is something you do in distress, not a sign the housing market has played you a blinder. That means the only way anyone tends to realise that supposed value is - you guessed it - by getting into debt by borrowing against it.
Speculators and landlords of course - they benefit. But “won’t someone think of the parasites” is not a desperately compelling point of view.)
The value of housing is something to obsess over in countries where everybody is up to the eyeballs in debt secured on it. Where that is not the case, it’s far less important (and as it is essentially just the entry fee for independence, ideally it’s low, not high.) A fear of house prices ever actually going down, because of what that would mean to mortgage holders, is the reason the UK has a major housing crisis that it can’t do anything about (for example.)
No it does not cancel out, because when you lose money on your old house, you are left with that debt.
And having that debt makes it impossible to take a loan for a new house.
I’ve seen this work out in practice up to 10 years after the housing bubble burst in 2008. Where we visited many foreclosures people couldn’t afford to keep, and couldn’t afford to move away from. It’s a very bad debt trap that I think maybe USA has regulation to get out of, but IDK if other countries have that, we for sure don’t have it here.
Most people in China are buying with savings, not debt. Something like 80% of homes there are owned outright with no debt hanging over them.
The problem you are describing is a problem of consumer indebtedness, not house prices per se.
They still lose their savings, so not that much better.
Well no, not really. If they’ve turned their savings into a house, and they still have a house, and they could still move house if they wanted, they’ve lost nothing if the notional value of that house goes down.
(Just as most people don’t actually get any richer when the notional value of their house goes up - once you have a house you tend to always need a house; selling up to move into rented accomodation is something you do in distress, not a sign the housing market has played you a blinder. That means the only way anyone tends to realise that supposed value is - you guessed it - by getting into debt by borrowing against it.
Speculators and landlords of course - they benefit. But “won’t someone think of the parasites” is not a desperately compelling point of view.)
The value of housing is something to obsess over in countries where everybody is up to the eyeballs in debt secured on it. Where that is not the case, it’s far less important (and as it is essentially just the entry fee for independence, ideally it’s low, not high.) A fear of house prices ever actually going down, because of what that would mean to mortgage holders, is the reason the UK has a major housing crisis that it can’t do anything about (for example.)
OK good point.