China's Housing Market: Bubble? No. Trouble? Maybe.

When it comes to China’s property market, so few and unreliable are the statistics and so jaw-dropping the anecdotes that it has been easy to take both of them out of context. This habit has been in vogue for quite some time now, and the cumulative effects have likely been responsible for the growing conviction we’ve heard on The Street of late that China is not only in a property bubble, but that when it bursts, the economy could collapse as well.

In this note, we examine some myths and misconceptions driving the doomsday scenario, followed by a discussion of what we perceive to be real risks in this market.