Building Vacancy · Full chronicle and history

A netizen posted their property deed on Xiaohongshu (RedNote), stating that they bought a house in Meishan, Sichuan for 1.6 million yuan in 2019, but now the same unit type is listed for only over 300,000 yuan, with 1 million yuan in bank loans still outstanding.

On November 10, multiple netizens filmed an unfinished building near Pingzhou Station in Bao'an, Shenzhen, that had been under construction suspension for a long time, completely wrapped in blue fencing material. Netizens joked that it looked like the Water Cube and claimed it would be restored to its original state after the meeting. Local netizens said they had seen this unfinished building since 2005.

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.

China's published fiscal data shows that in the first 8 months of 2026, revenue from state-owned land transfers exceeded 1.3 trillion yuan, a year-on-year decline of 28.6%.

In September 2026, independent media entered several office towers in Lujiazui, Shanghai, and filmed large numbers of vacant floors. International companies have moved out and office space has been drastically reduced, yet the buildings remain brightly lit at night, accused of creating an illusion of economic prosperity; property security guards have been withdrawn over unpaid fees, and management is lax.

Online reports claim that office towers such as Shenzhen's Future Assets Plaza only turn on their exterior lighting at night while the interiors stand empty, creating the false impression of a brightly lit, thriving building, when in fact many floors are vacant.

Data released by the Ministry of Finance of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) shows that land grant revenue across China fell by 31% from January to July 2026.

From January to July 2026, China's real estate development investment fell 19.2% year-on-year, while data related to newly started projects fell 24%.

On July 22, 2026, the Ministry of Finance announced that income from the transfer of state-owned land use rights in the first half of the year was 977.8 billion yuan, down 31.5% year-on-year, the largest decline for the same period in the first half of the year in nearly a decade.

The video cited data showing that China's land transfer revenue in the first half of 2026 was about 970 billion yuan, down 31.5% year-on-year.

China's real estate investment fell sharply by 18% year-on-year in the first half of this year, and the real estate market continues to decline.

In the first half of the year, national real estate development investment fell 18% year-on-year, further widening from the previous -15.2%; new residential construction starts fell 23.4%, sales fell 13.6%, and funds received by real estate developers fell 10.2%.

Citing real estate agents, the video says that some homes in Shanghai have been listed for half a year without a single viewing, property transactions are difficult and prices keep being cut, with the market showing prices but no buyers.

Shenzhen's housing vacancy rate has reached 60%, and many migrant workers live in harsh group rental houses, reflecting the difficulty of survival for the lower class.

According to CRIC data, from January to July 2026, the cumulative sales volume of the top 100 real estate enterprises was 1,591.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 14.6%.

A Beijing resident said the price of a villa in the Beijing suburbs fell from around 5 or 6 million to under 2 million.

A report released by Cushman & Wakefield shows that by the end of 2025, the vacancy rate for Grade A office buildings in Shanghai reached 23%, while Shenzhen's rate at one point exceeded 30%, reflecting a phenomenon of job losses and personnel outflow.

On June 16, 2026, the National Bureau of Statistics released data on changes in commercial residential property sales prices in 70 large and medium-sized cities. In May, new commercial housing prices fell 0.20% month-on-month, while existing home prices fell 0.26% month-on-month, with the declines widening further.

On June 16, 2026, Bloomberg reported that China's new home prices fell 0.2% month-on-month in May, while the decline in existing home prices was the largest in three months, showing that pressure from the property market adjustment has yet to ease.

According to data from the China Index Research Institute, in May 2026 the national average house price fell 3.6% year-on-year and 0.2% month-on-month, indicating the real estate market remains sluggish.

On April 25, 2026, the blogger went to the Zhaoxin Hui office building in the core business district of Shenzhen for an on-site visit. The building has a grand exterior with 61 floors, but the blogger found that floors 21 to 60 were almost entirely vacant, and most floors were still in shell condition, with only the ground floor and the 61st floor finished. In the video, the blogger questioned why a skyscraper built with huge investment is largely idle, implying that the developer may have issues with cash flow or project progress.

According to Cushman & Wakefield data, in April 2026 the vacancy rate for Grade A offices in Kowloon East rose to 20.7%, the highest in all of Hong Kong. In 2025, Kowloon East rents fell 7.9%, while Hong Kong Island East fell 10.5%.

S&P’s February 2026 report said that China’s housing supply exceeds demand, and that home prices are expected to fall another 2% to 4% in 2026, with steeper declines in core cities, creating a vicious cycle.

In a report in early February 2026, S&P lowered its forecast, projecting that China's property sales would fall 10% to 14% in 2026, compared with a previous forecast in October of a 5% to 8% decline.

According to online claims, based on completed-but-unsold and under-construction potential inventory, China's real estate inventory is about 93 trillion yuan, or roughly 80 million units; no public source can be found for this calculation.

A video claims that the actual transaction prices of second-hand homes in China in 2026 have fallen by about 40% compared with the 2021 peak; the China Index Academy says the average price of second-hand homes in 100 cities fell 7.6% year-on-year in October 2025, and the Mingyuan Real Estate Research Institute estimates that second-hand homes in outer suburbs and similar areas are down 20% to 50% from 2021, while no authoritative source has been found for the 40% figure.

A video estimates that some 60 million to 80 million households in China are slipping down the social ladder due to falling home prices and shrinking net worth; the figure is a video-based estimate with no authoritative source, though reports say falling home prices have drastically shrunk the wealth of middle-class families.

A Yao autonomous county in Guilin planned to invest 1.65 billion yuan in building a Yangshou culture-tourism city. After actually putting in 540 million yuan, the funding chain broke, and most of the 11 buildings in the county seat have stood vacant for a long time.

In the first seven months of this year, real estate development investment plummeted 19.2% year-on-year, with newly started floor space, floor space sold, and sales revenue all falling sharply across the board.

According to CBRE data, the vacancy area of Grade A offices territory-wide in Hong Kong reached 15.9 million square feet (about 1.48 million square meters) at the end of 2025, with an overall vacancy rate of 17.3% hitting a record high, before falling back to 16.1% in the second quarter of 2026.

Affected by the downturn in the real estate market, China's land finance revenue dropped to 4.15 trillion yuan, which has been halved compared to the peak in 2021.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics show that in 2025, nationwide sales of newly built commercial housing totaled 8,393.7 billion yuan, down 12.6% year on year; in 2021, commercial housing sales were 18,193.0 billion yuan.

In 2025, Guangzhou's land transfer revenue fell 23.6% year on year, while land transfer revenue at the municipal level dropped even more sharply, by 37.2%.

On January 29, 2024, Hong Kong High Court Judge Chen Jingfen issued a liquidation order against China Evergrande, which is indebted by more than 2.4 trillion yuan, stating that it failed to present a viable restructuring plan.

The value of China's residential housing peaked in 2021, economists say, at roughly six times GDP; estimates cited in the video put it at about 400 trillion to 470 trillion yuan.

In 2021, China's housing prices peaked, and land sale revenue hit a record high of 8.71 trillion yuan, followed by a significant annual decline.

A homebuyer in Zhengzhou reported that the property purchased in 2018 cost over one million yuan in total, including the purchase price, down payment, and interest. Listing prices in the same residential compound have since fallen sharply, leaving the buyer facing massive asset losses.

The video claims that between 2018 and 2022, about 100 million households bought homes at peak prices, accounting for more than 20% of all households nationwide; no public source can be found for this estimate.

Pan Shiyi has stopped acquiring land and begun selling off SOHO assets on a large scale in Shanghai and other locations, cashing out a cumulative total of approximately 30 billion RMB.

The video claims that after Japan's bubble burst, in 1992 Tokyo residential land prices fell 19% and commercial land prices fell 13%; no public reports could be found for these specific figures.

In the 1990s, Japan's real estate and stock market bubble burst. According to Nomura Research Institute estimates, roughly $9.3 trillion in national wealth evaporated between 1990 and 2002, and the unemployment rate rose gradually after 1992.