well, if all the lay-offs this year from a number of major design companies in construction industry on mainland is anything to go by i would not be saying its "just fine"
its been a dire year for the industry from where i stand.. ... billing has been an absolute freaking nightmare. i dont have enough fingers and toes to count the numbers of contracts breached and clients who have disappeared when their financing was pulled out from under them...
not a pretty year sadly... im relieved im not all in in the sector as i used to be, but its still hurting..
Yeah. I am sure there is not much design input required for the stuff that is mostly getting built at the moment.
The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off. --Gloria Steinem AREPS™
Maybe it has not done so well at distributing the increase of wealth, but even with the less-than-perfect distribution, it has raised the living standard of the poor at a speed unmatched in history.
Was talking to a finance guy the other night over a few fruit juices and he thinks the construction industry are just fine, because, at the same time as it has made it very hard for these companies to get finance to build villas and other high-end dwellings, it has pumped enormous amounts of government money into "affordable housing", which is pretty-much a euphamism for social housing, and railway construction. This is going to be hard to track too, because it doesn't show up as well in the real-estate stats and to the extent that it does, it will be seriously lowering the average sale price.
He is far from bullish about trust investments though.
I don't disagree that living standards have increased, but the apartments that have already been built are for the middle class/wealthy, of which there are not enough to purchase them all as living abodes (speculation is a different matter, and I think it is rather obvious that a large number of these apartments were purchased as speculative investments).
What happens to a speculative housing market when you suddenly start building large numbers of public housing?
------------------------------ " ... which is that all-too-familiar dynamic in Irish life where people tell lies, cover them up and create all sorts of collateral damage, sometimes spread out over decades, and never take responsibility." - Alan Glynn
I don't disagree that living standards have increased, but the apartments that have already been built are for the middle class/wealthy, of which there are not enough to purchase them all as living abodes (speculation is a different matter, and I think it is rather obvious that a large number of these apartments were purchased as speculative investments).
Simply untrue. The affordable end of the spectrum has always been the main focus of construction. There just aren't any journalists who know how to tell the taxi driver the address so they can go have a look. The real story here is that the government is repurposing the luxury builders/developers to go build affordable dwellings. Which is why the index of real estate companies in China is up 22% since April.
The luxury end will struggle and no doubt inventory will be hard to sell. There are a number of reasons, but the major one is that buying a luxury apartment is very politically incorrect at the moment. As one food importer said to me the other day, "nobody dares eat lobster these days".
The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off. --Gloria Steinem AREPS™
Simply untrue. The affordable end of the spectrum has always been the main focus of construction. There just aren't any journalists who know how to tell the taxi driver the address so they can go have a look. The real story here is that the government is repurposing the luxury builders/developers to go build affordable dwellings. Which is why the index of real estate companies in China is up 22% since April.
The luxury end will struggle and no doubt inventory will be hard to sell. There are a number of reasons, but the major one is that buying a luxury apartment is very politically incorrect at the moment. As one food importer said to me the other day, "nobody dares eat lobster these days".
How do you build an 'affordable' apartment without fixing the price at which the apartment can be sold? If wealthy people buy these 'affordable' apartments, it will push the price up, making them unaffordable. The government can build public housing, but how do they get the property developers to build apartments that they sell at a loss? Do they have a different land price for 'affordable' apartments?
------------------------------ " ... which is that all-too-familiar dynamic in Irish life where people tell lies, cover them up and create all sorts of collateral damage, sometimes spread out over decades, and never take responsibility." - Alan Glynn
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