“Everyone made the same bet on inexorably rising property prices, especially the developers, who levered to the hilt, overpaid for land at auctions, and scooped up as much real estate risk as they could take on,” [Michael Pettis, professor of finance at Peking University] said.
Because of course they did.
I know Mao didn’t actually kill the landlords but whatever happened to this? Why, in a country ruled by an actual communist party, is land ownership by anyone but the commons a thing?