this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2023
187 points (98.4% liked)

Damn, that's interesting!

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To circumvent local government's restriction on sharp price drop, Chinese real estates developers literally handed out gold ingots to home buyers. (lemmy.nz)
submitted 1 year ago by throws_lemy@lemmy.nz to c/damnthatsinteresting@lemmy.ml
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Context :

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/12/gold-bars-used-to-lure-chinese-homebuyers-amid-market-slowdown

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[–] Pregnenolone@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Governments are preventing companies from rapidly dropping house prices. But because they’re not worth what they’re forced to keep charging by the government (government isn’t forcing anyone to buy for example), developers are needing to add extra value to the sale to get buyers, hence the gold bars.

House is worth $300k, but the government is forcing you to list it for $500k, so if I throw in $200k worth of gold bars, the whole sale is worth the price.

[–] Smoked_Brie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 year ago

Wild. Can’t quite wrap my brain around how fucked this is.