Heard a discussion by some ex-pats in China about the housing market, especially Beijing, and thought it was interesting. Basically, residents lived in buildings that they rented for a nominal cost that hadn’t increased much in decades from their work unit, which were then forced to be sold to the residents when the state-owned enterprises started coming down in the 90’s. Since the average person couldn’t afford anywhere near market value, they were sold at huge discounts to these workers’ benefit. Immediately, 30 years of muted appreciation presented these people with disproportionately valuable property. We tend to view bubbles from a Western, open-economy perspective, but that is to ignore the significant differences with China. Mispricings can exist longer than you can stay liquid in the US, but I definitely wouldn’t bet the bank trying to lean against the Chinese government. Also, bubbles get popped exponentially faster with leverage involved, and China has a high savings rate and high mortgage downpayments - the government even announced in the past month that the downpayment ratio must be at least 30%. Even a 1/3 correction wouldn’t leave homeowners underwater. Plus, most people in the US make economic decisions in walking away from underwater mortgages; China highly values saving face and would likely factor that heavily into their decision before defaulting.