"the Chinese property market"
There is another reason why China's property crisis gets worse as time goes by - and why Chinese investors prefer to buy houses in Australia.
In China, you don't buy the land or unit, you just buy the right to use the land or unit for a period of time (sort of like a lease with no weekly rent). This ranges from 40-50 years for commercial land to 70 years for residential.
When you sell your home or business to someone else, you sell the remaining use period - which means it is worth less over time. This is and why most Chinese prefer to buy new off the plan - to get the 70 year use period rather than old where the use period might be only 30 years.
When the use period expires, you have to buy the use period again from the government at market cost, or give the keys to the government to sell it to someone else.
This means properties serving as mortgage collateral in banks see their liquidity deteriorate as their leaseholds get closer to expiration. So why would someone keep paying the full mortgage on a property that keep going down in value to zero and why they prefer to own a house in Australia that they can leave to their children.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/expiring-land-use-rights-what-can-we-expect-sean-linkletter
(20min delay)