China: number of newly built apartments | Statista (2024)

FAQs

China: number of newly built apartments | Statista? ›

In 2021, almost 6.5 million new residential properties were built in China, an increase from the previous years. Since the 1998 housing reform, the number of new builds kept growing for more than a decade, before reaching the peak of 7.64 million in 2012.

It is estimated that 22 per cent of Chinese housing stock is vacant, so that 65 million privately owned properties in China do not have occupants (Batarags 2021. 2021. 'China Has at Least 65 Million Empty Homes – Enough to House the Population of France.

Every year China starts building about 15m new homes, more than quintuple the amount in America and Europe combined.

China's Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development announced on February 15 that China has nearly 600 million buildings in cities and villages combined.

By adding his his estimate made in 2020 to official figures for the number of houses built to completion since then, there are about 400 million homes in mainland China. That eye-watering number is roughly 16 times the total number of homes – both occupied and empty – in Hong Kong.

In 2021, almost 6.5 million new residential properties were built in China, an increase from the previous years. Since the 1998 housing reform, the number of new builds kept growing for more than a decade, before reaching the peak of 7.64 million in 2012.

The rapid pace of urbanization in China has led to a high demand for housing, with a massive number of new apartment buildings being constructed each year.

Today China is a country of homeowners with more than 90% of households owning homes (87% in urban and 96% in rural China) (Clark, Huang, & Yi, 2019). At the same time, more than 20% Chinese households own multiple homes, higher than many developed nations (Huang et al., 2020).

Ghosts towns are not unusual in China, where an estimated 65 million homes are left empty. For decades, the country's economy was driven by real estate, so much so that the government often encouraged large-scale developments.

FENG: Meaning China's relied on a fast rate of urbanization and empowered local governments to invest and take on huge amounts of debt financed by selling to developers. And they've overbuilt. China is pressuring developers now to pay off their debts, which many of them can't.

Are 50 million homes empty in China? ›

China is demolishing apartments and pausing construction of buildings that can house as many as 75 million people. According to one estimate - at least 50 million homes in China remain unoccupied.

Despite this, there remains a substantial oversupply of construction projects in China: indeed, Fathom's proprietary indicators suggest there is enough uncompleted housing stock to accommodate 200 million people, roughly equivalent to the population of Brazil.

China's property market is in crisis. Real estate prices that skyrocketed over the past few decades have begun to fall back to Earth. Now the danger is that collapsing home values will also bring the world's second-biggest economy down along with them.

Since 1978, the government has promoted the commercialization of housing in urban areas. Property development has become big business in China, with new cities and suburbs springing up with new apartments.

There are two main types of housing in Chinese cities: traditional, extended-family houses and large apartment buildings. In the Mao era most families were assigned to an apartment by their place of employment. In crowded areas, two families must sometimes share an apartment.

Typically apartments are rented furnished, which includes closets. Newer places may even have a walk-in closet, depending on the owner. In addition, the bed frame may have ample built-in storage space. Speaking of beds, mattresses in China are very hard and you can often feel every spring.

The report said the average housing vacancy rate in 28 major cities is higher than in the United States, Canada, France, Australia and Britain, with a 7% vacancy rate in tier-one cities including Beijing, and 12% in tier-two cities.

Hotel Room Occupancy Rate: Total data was reported at 38.350 % in 2022. This records a decrease from the previous number of 41.770 % for 2021. Hotel Room Occupancy Rate: Total data is updated yearly, averaging 56.880 % from Dec 1999 to 2022, with 24 observations.

Beijing wanted to cool its housing market, but created a bigger problem, as the fallout from debt-laden developers and sinking sales spreads to the broader economy.