2012/8/26 鄂爾多斯的民間借貸與房地產處在崩潰邊緣

鄂爾多斯的民間借貸與房地產都在崩潰邊緣。

鄂爾多斯在距離舊城30公里的 "康巴什" 區域興建一座新城市，這個新城區已經空空蕩蕩無人居住了好幾年，早就已經成為國際的焦點，也成為大家評論中國房地產是個大泡沫的有力證據。而這個泡沫問題已經越來越大。

據「人民日報」報導，這個空城的許多建設已經了停下來，不只是新城區，連舊城區的許多工程也停工了。當初到鄂爾多斯工作的工人已陸續離開這個城市。尤其糟糕的是，鄂爾多斯90%的居民都有投資房地產，也同時大部分人都有參與民間借貸，而且資金正是融資給蓋這座空城的房地產開發商們。現在中國打房，房地產開發商手頭非常吃緊，居民很擔心借出去的錢無法收回。

根據報導估計，未完工的建築物中，大約8成已經停工，總面積約2000萬平方米，而現在這些建物根本找不到買家。 根據中國2010年的人口普查數據，鄂爾多斯人口僅194萬人，卻不知為什麼要另外蓋一個全新的新成區，但市所有人卻都只住在舊城區。

Constructions at China’s most famous ghost city grind to a halt

Ordos city of Inner Mongolia has been the most famous ghost city of China, a demonstration of the most wrong aspects of Chinese economic growth model, with every problem multiplied by a factor of ten (sort of).  In Ordos, you can see constructions of buildings for a population that does not exist, with its residents all involved inreal estate investment and informal lending, etc.  Oh, and of course, Ordos just hosted the Miss World Pageant, something that we could not care less.

Needless to say, it was more than obvious from the start that all these real estate speculations and informal lending would not end well.  And indeed, they did not end well.  People’s Daily recently reported that the hangover of this feverish real estate speculations and informal lending boom has been so bad that not only is the new district of Kangbashi a ghost city, but the old city centre has also become a place with unfinished buildings everywhere.

Many real estate constructions have been stopped, and we previously noted that workers who sought jobs in Ordos have left as constructions stopped.  People’s Daily pointed out that some 90% of the residents of Ordos have invested in real estate, which are now all becoming these unfinished buildings.  Not only that, many residents are also invested in informal lending schemes that funded real estate developers, now as many real estate developers are being squeezed, many residents are now worried about getting burned both from real estate investments and informal lending, while some owners of real estate developers are hiding.

According to estimates cited in the report, some 80% of all buildings currently under construction have had the constructions stopped (so no longer under construction, really), with the total floor area of more than 20 million square meters.  Nowadays, there are no buyers outside of sales office of real estate, and most of those people who do appear every now and then are hoping to get a repayment of debts from developers.

Ordos, while very extreme, nevertheless demonstrates how things can go wrong, and very badly.  Asset prices fall and over-leveraged borrowers get squeezed, investments collapses, etc.  Eventually, some of the debts will never be paid back, bad debts will increase, and that will most likely be true for informal lending schemes as well as the formal banking sector.

Of course, no one is suggesting that this is what China will come down to as a while.  But this gives one a general idea of what can happen when everything goes very wrong.  And as a reminder, there is not many things which are not going wrong at the moment, just not this wrong that is.