Ponzi "Shark Loans" Fuel China’s Housing Bubble; Home Sales Plunge 44% in Xiamen; Bubble Busts in Tianjin

China’s property bubble is now on the verge of collapse. Transaction volumes are significantly down and declining volume is how property bubbles always burst. In simple terms, the pool of greater fools eventually runs out.

In China’s case, the pool of fools is heavily involved in “loan shark” schemes where speculators hope property values rise fast enough to cover the interest.

Ponzi Loan Shark Operations Fuel Bubble

Please consider The Secret Engine Behind China’s Housing Bubble- The Ponzi Shark Loan Finance

In this article we will show how the ponzi shark loan scheme works and why we think the regime in China will fall. Our research is based on sources INSIDE CHINA

This is how this Ponzi scheme works:

Local officials, [required by] the government to produce double digit GDP growth numbers, give real estate developers permits to build housing projects in return for bribes. They also get bribes in return for allowing the shark loan companies to operate under their jurisdiction. Some of them are active partners in shark loan businesses. Every scheme has a ring leader whose job is to collect money from all the participants in the Ponzi scheme. When some of these Ponzi schemes blow up, the party leaders always get bailed out first.

Most of the funds that are collected in this classic Ponzi finance go to local land purchases and real estate development. Part of the funds are used in order to pay back the rolling loan. The short term interest rate in this black market is very high and ranges between 20%-150% annual rate. The sources of the Ponzi funds are diverse, as ordinary citizens, banks with corrupted bank officials, and state enterprises play the game.

A reader wrote to us this email two weeks ago, which triggered our in depth research:

“My hometown is Zhejiang, now I live in shanghai, my sister pledged her home to bank, she lived in Hangzhou, she bought her home around 500,0000rmb five years ago, now her home worth 2 million RMB, so she can get huge loan from bank, she gave this loan to a shark loan company with 30% return every year, she has been doing and living on this for 4 years, she is a middle school teacher, she earned 4000rmb per month, but with this lending arrangement, she has been able to buy a car, the interest income is 6 times of her salary, One of my cousin’s father lost all his principle of 4 million since one scheme blow up in 2008. That is my personal experience. …

Fractional Reserve Lending On Steroids

I got that story and link from someone in China who has been attempting to get me to post it. I wanted to verify it first.

I sent the above link to Bill Hopen, my sculptor friend (please see Inside China: A Sculptor’s View) and asked him what he knows about “loan sharking”. Bill is married to a Chinese and lives in China part-time