You would have seen the images: identikit tower blocks reaching for the skies; skeletal cranes standing idle; lifeless apartment blocks amid the detritus of...

You would have seen the images: identikit tower blocks reaching for the skies; skeletal cranes standing idle; lifeless apartment blocks amid the detritus of construction. Photo editors used to turn to these images to illustrate China's so-called 'ghost cities'. Of late, they seem increasingly apt in indicating a broader malaise: falling property prices; slowing land sales and construction activity; the impending day of reckoning for highly-indebted local governments. Indeed, the consensus now is that policymakers need to stabilise property prices to prevent the rot from spreading to other parts of an economy facing its most serious challenge in years. If a disaster were to sink China's economy, the thinking goes, the property market will probably be at the epicentre. What we see is a more nuanced picture. It is one that better reflects the size and diversity of a property market in which there are pockets of distress amid an overall slowdown, but where the stress levels are insufficient to trigger a crash. Why so? (VIEW LINK)