China has turned down an International Monetary Fund (IMF) recommendation aimed at ending the country's yearslong property market crisis, a move estimated to cost about $1 trillion. In a report on the , the IMF called for the central government to speed up "completion of unfinished, presold housing, which would help restore homebuyer confidence." The IMF recommended a comprehensive policy package, partially funded by the central government, to tackle the issue of unfinished presold projects.
This approach should be paired with the "timely resolution," or liquidation of insolvent developers, to ensure market stability, the document said. China's property market, which once accounted for one-fifth of the nation's economic activity, entered a in 2020 when the government introduced policies targeting speculation and excessive borrowing. Overleveraged real estate giants, including Evergrande and Country Garden, plunged into insolvency.
Evergrande was ordered earlier this year to liquidate, while Country Garden faces a similar fate unless it can finalize a debt-restructuring plan by January. "I think how China is resolving this crisis on a city-by-city basis speaks to the government's approach," Peter Sattler, a senior lecturer in economics at China's Duke Kunshan University, told . However, he noted that Shanghai, a first-tier city with higher real estate prices and buoyed by exports, is far from the norm.
"In the interior, I think it's proceeding much slower," he said. Among the .