The Story Behind the Many Ghost Towns of Abandoned Mansions Across China

INTRODUCTION
The Chinese government had big plans for its real estate—so how did it end up with hoards of abandoned mansions across the country? Take the State Guest Mansions, a development envisioned as the palatial homes for the upper crust of society. Now their only residents are hurdles of cattle and the occasional adventure explorers meandering like ghosts around the arched verandas and stone façades of hundreds of abandoned villas. Located around the hills of Shenyang (about 400 miles northeast of Beijing), the development was originally planned by Greenland Group, a Shanghai-based real estate developer, and broke ground in 2010. But as AFP reports, within two years the project had come to grinding halt, leaving the half-formed skeletons of imitative royalty in its wake. Today the crumbling estates are still abandoned, left in an eerie series of rows appearing like an architectural cornfield.
The irony of this formation will only grow more apparent as the seasons begin to turn, as local farmers have begun plowing the land between villas for future crops. Would-be garages of the abandoned mansions are now repurposed as storage for hay bails, and modest two-rail fences corral herds of cows between properties.

The interiors of the abandoned mansions are perhaps even more poignant. A heavy layer of dust and scraps of garbage are the only furnishing in the rooms, a stark contrast to what appears to be marble floors and columns, crystal chandeliers, coffered ceilings, and intricate marquetry. In what would have been the sales center, a model of the completed 260-villa neighborhood still sits. “These (homes) would have sold for millions—but the rich haven’t even bought one of them,” a farmer named Guo told AFP.

Evergrande’s collapse is just the most notable example of an occurrence that is happening all across China. Numerous developers are massively in debt, defaulting on payments, and struggling with losses, resulting in these unfinished housing projects and skeletal would-be communities. Greenland Group, the developer responsible for the State Guest Mansion, recently defaulted on $400 million worth of international bonds, Chen reported in the video. These issues have also caused many middle class Chinese citizens to loose faith in the real estate market, further impacting demand and creating additional risks for the country’s broader economy. As Bloomberg reports, many citizens have grown wealth through real estate, and 70% of family assets are stored in property. “Every 5% decline in home prices will wipe out 19 trillion yuan ($2.7 trillion) in housing wealth,” the publication reported.

CONCLUSION
Country Garden, another Chinese developer, is responsible for Forest City, a $100 billion mega development in southern Malaysia that is now near empty. Though it was planned to house 700,000 people, only about 9,000 live there, prompting the Wall Street Journal described the complex as a “ghost city.” What was supposed to be a place for rich Chinese people to buy a second home or investment property close to Singapore, is now another emblem of China’s real estate crisis. According to Al Jazeera, only about 10% of total project has been completed.