"Hong Kong journalists have asked me how I see the prime minister's remarks that real estate prices have not gone down to reasonable levels. I said SOHO is not your average developer. It is involved mainly in the development of office buidlings. When the premier said that real estate prices were not in line with incomes, he was referring to residential property prices. We have always thought that housing prices were too high vis-a-vis rental returns and household incomes. This is what we've said, and we've also acted in line with this belief. In the last few years, we have not bought any land for residential use." more ›

"Pudong is the capital of Chinese exceptionalism. On almost every corner you can see the work of economic tools that Western politicians might dream of these days, tools that have allowed China to snatch success from error over and over in the past 30 plus years of reform." more ›

China is about to face a challenging upcoming year amid lingering fears concerning a global financial meltdown. Declining property prices and a severe trade situation are raising serious concerns regarding the economic stability of the backbone of the world economy. more ›

In China's biggest muncipality, Chongqing, lies one of the most sought after sites in all of urban China. The site, which resembles lower Manhattan, has now been bought by one of Asia's biggest real estate companies, Capitaland, for more than 1 billion US dollars. Developers aim to transform the unique and charismatic site into an economic heavyweight in the future. more ›

"I wake up this morning and find the radio, TV and print media all going on and on about how the property market is entering a winter season as real estate prices tumble. I don't understand -- are these macroeconomic adjustments here to help stabilise economic development, or are they here just to make property prices fall? Is there any country in history that has managed to grow its economy stably after a property bust?" more ›

Last weekend, hundreds of angry homeowners in Pudong faced off riot police and smashed up the office of their real estate developer for offering discounts of up to 30% for units in their apartment complex. Yesterday, a similar, smaller-sized protest took place in Jiading. more ›

Hundreds of angry homeowners gathered last weekend to protest what could become a growing trend of price slashing in housing markets around China. Developers of a Pudong apartment complex started offering discounts of up to 30%, enraging buyers who had already invested in the development, as they essentially watched a chunk of their money evaporate. Hundreds gathered in the face of riot police to trample the developers' offices and show their general discontent. more ›

Two years ago, Al Jazeera's China correspondent Melissa Chan visited the city of Ordos in Inner Mongolia and found an entire town raised from the desert in just five years, complete with gleaming skyscrapers and futuristic buildings. Only problem was, nobody was actually living there. more ›

A piece of good news on the architectural preservation front: Trinity Cathedral (featured in J.G. Ballard's ) is finally reopening, according to a nice feature on the LA Times. The church was supposed to have finished renovation before Expo, but unfortunately wasn't able to make the deadline. We're excited to check it out. More after the jump: more ›

Jim Chanos has never visited my friend's neighborhood, but he would love it. It is the apotheosis of everything he says is wrong with the Chinese real estate market, which more than a year ago, the influential short-seller famously outlined. more ›

Has the Shanghai laowai (老外) bug got into you? Have you been thinking of making Shanghai your new home? If so, then before you settle down you might want to check out these new regulations. According to China's Ministry of Housing and Urban Rural Development, purchases of apartments/houses by foreigners could be restricted or even capped in a move to combat speculative money from overseas. more ›

We've all heard of the endless amounts of nailhouse disputes in China, but very few of us will actually get the chance to experience the fight against developers... except for in video game form! Meet the hot new flashgame tearing up China's interwebs: Nail Household v. Demolition Team. more ›

While everybody loves to have a big living space, most people here aren't able to find one in China's highly packed cities. Taking the matter into their own hands, some talented folks in Haikou, Hainan built a super narrow building - one side was only 20cm! more ›

Late last week at a conference in Dalian, a shoe was thrown at real estate mogul Ren Zhiqiang (任志强), chairman of Beijing's Huayuan Property and member of Beijing's CPPCC by an irate member of the audience. The outspoken tycoon shot to the forefront of attention late last year when he suggested that young people should not be able to afford houses and that people who aren't able to afford houses should return to their village (买不起房就该回农村). In 2009, Ren Zhiqiang took the top spot in CEO salaries in a ranking of 258 listed companies which disclosed their annual reports. more ›

• We don't know what's worse: listening to one of China's richest women bitch about the impending burst of the bubble who made her that way, or her escalating her hustle of overvalued real estate the midst of said burst. Actually, we're voting for the picture of her smiling and standing like Shirley Temple next to statue of a cartoon Deng Xiaoping.[Forbes]
• The USA's annual Human Rights Report has, as expected, taken aim at China's admittedly less-than-stellar record in the arena. But we were more taken by the eighth line of the report: "Widespread violent crimes in the United States posed threats to the lives, properties and personal security of its people. [The Wall Street Journal's China RealTime Report]

It seems that the severely inflated housing market has spawned a lot of recent creativity. From the popular soap opera about the scandalous things people to for real estate to the lonely bachelor who pitched a tent on the subway to protest high prices (and the effect it has on his love life), people have been finding artistic expressions for the toll exacted on society by high property values and crippling mortgages. The latest expression is the craftily catchy "Happy Lane" by Beijing folk singer Chuan Zi. While he might be a little wanting in his singing capacity, the intensity he brings makes up for it in spades. more ›

The more we hear about China's housing market, the more outrageous it seems. China's real estate investment grew by 75% last year: in total, 4.4 trillion yuan was spent last year, a large part of which was fueled by 9.5 trillion in new loans. If you need a physical gauge for just how much that is, chew on this: over the course of the year, China sold 937 million square meters of space, nearly twice as much as in 2008. In order to curb housing market mania, Wen Jiabao announced new curbs on lending to manage credit growth, but with the enormous contribution that housing makes to the national GDP, we'd be surprised if anything but a crash will stop people from buying new houses. more ›

Remember that building that collapsed in Minhang last year? According to Shanghai Daily, it might get a nominal facelift (security inspections aside, hopefully): apartment owners want the management to change the name of the complex. Of course, those who already own property in "Lotus Riverside" are fearful the complex's bad rep will affect the already outrageous real estate prices, but the owners of the buildings will only accede if 90% of residents agree. Perhaps both sides should bear in mind our Shakespearian coinage: a property by any other same would topple as easily. more ›

It's no secret that housing prices are intensely inflated in China. But as the economy picks back up, people are beginning to pay attention and even worry about the consequences of a housing bubble similar to the one that's ravished the U.S. economy. more ›

Subway riders eager to experience the glory of Shanghai's new line seven on Saturday were treated to a surprise: a man pitching a tent in the subway. No, we're not talking about your typical rush hour perverts: we literally mean he had a tent and pitched it, right in a subway car. more ›

We love pirates. Eyepatches, peg legs, swashbuckling- you name it, we love it. We even have a soft spot for the Somali pirates, because somewhere deep inside of us, we know that they're keeping the dream alive. Of course, these days it's pretty hard to be a pirate, and it's not as glamorous a lifestyle as it once was. Times have gotten hard: valuable cargo now has military escorts, or avoid the Gulf of Aden altogether. Heck, even Dolphins are getting in the way of your business. more ›

• This is pretty damn cool: Two Iranians are reshuffling scenes from Persepolis, a black comedy cartoon by Iranian-French emigre Marjane Satrapi, into a story about President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed victory. Where are they working from? GOOD OLD SHANGHAI. Check out the comic here. [AFP]
• The average price of commercial residential houses in Shanghai reached 19,603 yuan per square meter last week. Anybody got a house to sell? Now seems like the time. [People's Daily]
• The Book Fair was wildly successful this week - about 240,000 people visited, buying 28 million yuan worth of books. [Shanghai Daily]

• Barack Obama and Bill Gates endorse real estate in Xi'an [Danwei] "The developer erected four giant 10x6m billboards around the building, each displaying the portrait of one "spokesperson" coupled with a quote in English and Chinese. In the Obama sign, the quote of choice is 'The values upon which our success depends have never changed,' a slight adaptation from a line in his inaugural address: 'Our challenges may be new....but those values upon which our success depends, honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old'."
• Red tape to test transsexuals' desire [Eastday] "It was revealed last month officials at the Ministry of Health plan to set clear criteria for people who qualify for the surgery, as well as the hospitals and staff allowed to carry it out. Some in the transgender community, however, have raised concerns the new rules could be too strict [...] His fears center on the fact that, if the rules are approved, patients will have to prove they have had the desire to swap their gender for at least five years, and have lived full-time as their chosen gender for two years."
• A Virtual Game to Teach Children Languages [NYTimes Bits Blog] "Kids choose an avatar and pick a scene, like a castle in a fantasy land or a supermarket in the United States. They are confronted with challenges, like dodging flying monsters or buying fruit, all of which ask them to use English. If they hit a ceiling in their language capabilities, they go to the wizards’ library and read so-called magical books that teach them lessons. The company is initially focusing on kids age 7 to 12 in China but plans to expand globally, eventually teaching many different languages to kids all over the world."

Porn shoot? Nope. Actually, this was a photography competition hosted by a real estate company in Hubei. The photographer's mission, if they chose to accept it, was to take a great picture of a (very naked) human figure on pieces of property the company had up for sale. And accept it they did... in droves. Over 100 pervy photogs showed up to snap pics... we're betting not all of them made it to public collections. more ›

Another day, another real estate dispute in Shanghai. This time around, it's residents in the Dong Cheng Community in Pudong fighting against the company that built their compound, according to this BBS thread on Sohu. more ›

We've heard of some barking mad methods to throw renters out on the street, but this particular incident is really boneheaded. A developer in Taiyuan, the capital of Shaanxi Province, unleashed dogs on its tenants and put some of them in a dog cage because they did not move out of their house on time. more ›

• Lest we have those twin luxury towers (which were to hold the Conrad Hilton) rot in the middle of the city, the Shanghai government is now trying to orchestrate a buyout of the stalled project. [WSJ]
• Thanks to the Expo, wait times are going to be slashed to 4 minutes or less on the No. 7 subway line. We just have to wait til next year before it goes into effect. [Shanghai Daily]
• Foreign firms are allowed to list on the Shanghai stock exchange for the first time ever in an attempt to turn the city into a financial center like New York or London. [Telegraph]

• Probe into collective air ticket price hike urged [China Daily] “Chinese consumer-right groups and law scholars Friday urged authorities to investigate into a collective price hikes by major airlines, which they suspected to be a violation of the Anti-monopoly Law. The Beijing Consumers Association, the Beijing Consumer Protection Law Society, the Beijing society on industry and business administration and the civil and commercial laws research center under the Beijing-based Renmin University expressed their concern over the controversial price hikes in a joint statement. "The pricing mechanism agreed by domestic airliners has led to an average rise of 10 percent in price of air tickets."

The bigger unit, measuring in at 26,400 square meters, cost its new owner 205 million RMB (roughly $30 million US). The smaller one was had for a bargain of 115 million RMB. more ›

Ex-Pudong Vice Governor Kang Huijun, who allegedly accepted nearly 6 million yuan in bribes, has been sentenced to life in prison. Kang, who became known as “Pudong's landlord,” was arrested in 2007. Besides the bribes, he and his wife, Wang Xiaoyin, also illegally owned 11 million yuan worth of property. Wang has been given a five-year term and about 18 million yuan of the couples' net worth has been repossessed by the government. Caijing published a great summary of what Kang and Wang did leading up to their arrest. more ›