By Anna Xing VI Form

The Rise and Fall of the Chinese Housing Market: Government Influence

Editor’s Note: This paper was completed as a part of the History Research Fellowship, a one-semester course available to sixth form students.

Student-Submitted Note: As the final product of my History Research Fellowship class, this paper examines the rise and fall of the Chinese housing market over the past 25 years and the government’s role in it. It first provides an overview of the birth of the market, then dives into the boom and bust of the market, and finally contrasts how foreign and Chinese state-owned medias report on the market.

“You have to enter a lottery to buy an apartment?” This was my reaction when my parents told me about how competitive the housing market was in my hometown of Hangzhou, China in 2020. This Chinese eagerness to invest in housing, however, did not appear overnight. Back on January 10, 2011, China Daily reported that “a man beaten into a coma during a fight between hopeful homebuyers and a developer in Hangzhou is rushed to the hospital.”