At least 48 million homes in China have been sold before construction has been completed, suggesting the country’s property crisis won’t be resolved anytime soon, according to a report from Bloomberg Intelligence. 

The figure, bigger than Germany’s total housing stock in 2021, presents a direct threat to developers’ revenue, because people could start avoiding pre-sales of new developments and instead buy completed or second-hand housing, analysts Kristy Hung and Monica Si wrote. 

Home completion was short by 8.4 billion sq m (90 billion sq ft) for sales made from 2000 through the first half of this year, about 38% of the cumulative total, the analysts said. The non-completion ratio soared from an average of 17% of annual sales before 2015 to 47% in 2015 to 2023. 

China is seeing a fundamental shift in buyer preference, with existing-home sales overtaking new homes by area for the first time ever last year. Completed homes accounted for 27% of new sales in the first half, compared with 10% for all of 2021, according to the Bloomberg Intelligence report. 

  - Bloomberg