Even 1.4 billion people can’t fill China’s vacant homes.

China’s vast population of 1.4 billion would not suffice to occupy all the unoccupied apartments scattered throughout the country, as stated by a former Peking official.

This represents a rare public critique of China’s property market, which has been grappling with challenges.

China’s real estate sector, once a cornerstone of the economy, has been facing a downturn since 2021, triggered by the default of the real estate giant China Evergrande Group due to stricter borrowing regulations. Prominent developers like Country Garden Holdings are still at risk of default, keeping potential homebuyers cautious.

As of the end of August, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) indicates that there was a combined floor area of 648 million square meters (7 billion square feet) of unsold homes, equivalent to approximately 7.2 million homes.

This figure does not include the numerous residential projects that have been sold but remain incomplete due to financial issues or the multiple homes acquired by speculators during the market upturn in 2016 that remain vacant, collectively representing a significant portion of the unused housing space.

This negative view of the economically significant sector at a public forum stands in sharp contrast to the official narrative that the Chinese economy is “resilient.”