The phenomenon of large-scale unused space after office buildings, shops, residential buildings, and factories are completed: vacancy rates, brightly lit corridors and empty offices, entire floors of unfinished skyscrapers.
On November 6, a netizen in Qinhuangdao, Hebei, posted a video of the unfinished Dongfudian Xincun project, stating that the project was originally marketed as providing wedding homes for older youth, but it has remained unfinished for 16 years. Many buildings are still in a rough state with exposed brick walls and no doors or windows installed.
Huafa Shares released its Q3 report, showing a net loss attributable to the parent company of 6.437 billion in the first three quarters. As of September 30, the owner's equity attributable to shareholders of the listed company was only 3.093 billion, a sharp decline from 19 billion within one year.
On October 23, the Ministry of Finance released fiscal revenue and expenditure data for the first three quarters. In September, national land transfer revenue was 233.4 billion yuan, down 23.2% year on year; individual income tax revenue was 138.4 billion yuan, up 10.5% year on year. In the first three quarters, land transfer revenue decreased by 621.5 billion yuan year on year.
An in-depth Financial Times report on October 21 pointed out that China's population decline, deflation, weak consumption, and slumping property and stock markets resemble Japan in its day; after the property bubble burst in 2021, new housing starts fell 78% from their peak. Economist Richard Koo argues for stimulating demand through fiscal spending, while Adam Slater does not rule out growth slowing to 2% to 2.5% over the next decade.
Economic data released on October 19 showed that from January to September 2026, China's real estate development investment fell 20.6% year-on-year, a wider decline than in January–August; national fixed-asset investment fell 7.2% year-on-year; and total retail sales of consumer goods rose 1.1% year-on-year in September, with the growth rate picking up from August.
On October 17, netizens posted that several real estate developers in Chengdu suddenly held all-staff meetings, announcing a work suspension and furlough, with employees not needing to report to work the next day. Multiple project companies in the Chengdu area were affected, and employees had already received furlough notices.
Statistics from JPMorgan at the end of October showed that multiple offshore bonds of Huafa fell by an average of 54 points, causing Huafa Shares' stock price to hit the daily limit and sparking widespread market concern over its debt crisis.
According to data cited in the video, in the first five months of 2026, China's land transfer revenue fell by nearly 30% year-on-year, a steeper decline than for the whole of 2025.
In the first half of 2026, the proportion of Chinese homeowners over the age of 60 listing their properties for sale soared to 22.7%, a significant increase from 11.3% in 2022.
On September 17, Evergrande Auto released its 2026 interim results, showing that the company has only 7 employees left, with total assets of approximately 182 million yuan and liabilities as high as 32.722 billion yuan. The company explicitly stated that it has exited the vehicle manufacturing business and has no intention to resume it, with the net profit for the first half of the year mainly derived from exchange gains on borrowings.
In September 2026, a tenant in Hangzhou said the office building they were in had a high vacancy rate: nearly all the tenants on their floor had moved out, leaving only one company, with many offices sitting vacant and no one renewing the leases.
In September 2026 a blogger filmed multiple towers in Lujiazui, Shanghai at night, claiming that after 8 p.m. every floor inside the buildings was fully lit while most were actually vacant, and that the interior lighting was artificially produced to create an appearance of prosperity.
On September 14, 2026, the blogger filmed a nighttime on-site scene in a multi-story office building in Shanghai and found large areas of vacancy on some floors, with corridor lights still on and no one inside the offices. The video shows that the brightly lit exterior of the building actually contains mostly public corridors, while the actual office areas are empty. Data released by several real‑estate consulting firms for the second quarter of 2026 state that the overall vacancy rate of Grade‑A office buildings in Shanghai is between 22% and 23.5%. A JLL report shows the overall vacancy rate of Shanghai Grade‑A office towers at 23.5%, with 19.3% in the Central Business District and 27.1% outside it, meaning that for every four square metres, more than one square metre is vacant. This phenomenon reveals a supply‑greater‑than‑demand situation in Shanghai's office‑building market.
A neighbor said the family bought the house for about 1.35 million yuan in 2021 and paid for renovations; after five years of mortgage repayments, they sold the house for 800,000 yuan. Her husband is unemployed, and the family is under considerable pressure to repay the loan.
Since September, Zhuhai Huafa has been seeking to negotiate with at least three Chinese banks, attempting to extend the maturity and lower the interest rates for all its deposits, but was rejected by the banks, which was followed by the default of its trust products.