Pan-fried and Steamed: House of cards

A vacant home with a private dumping ground. I mean yard.

I don't believe everything I hear, but early in our stay someone told me that the real estate vacancy rates in some parts of China have reached over 50%. I have no idea where this person got her information or if it is even remotely accurate. However, I have noticed quite a few empty buildings in the area, especially in our compound. Real estate in China, as I understand it (and I admit I know very little) is different from what we are used to. For one thing, when a new construction is purchased, only the outside walls and roughed in plumbing are included. The buyer finishes the walls, adds cabinets, sinks, flooring, etc. In addition, you don't purchase the land, you only purchase the building, so you have few rights should the planners decide to re-purpose the land on which your home sits. The reason I bring this up is that our lovely compound (and it is lovely!) has several streets of such unfinished homes. From the outside, they look almost the same as the finished houses, but they are unfinished on the inside. The management of the compound has put these unfinished house to use and they now serve as storage for furniture that isn't being used, work areas for the gardeners, break areas and other things. Many of them don't even have doors that close properly, allowing stray cats to find their way inside. It was pretty surprising to me to see these buildings being used this way, knowing what the rent is on our place! It leads me to believe that there are no renters for these properties if the management can afford to leave them vacant and use them in a way that they can not be quickly converted to living spaces. The street we live on is about 80% occupied, and seems typical for our compound. But I think that maybe 15% of what has been built is unfinished 8 years later. And yet construction continues all around town? Very curious.