Chinas Property Crisis Grinds On and Continues to Hold Back the Economy

The property crisis that began in 2021 has had a long, ugly tail that seems to get ever longer.Construction workers leave a building site for a new office tower in the Central Business District in Beijing on April 3, 2025. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images1/23/2026|Updated: 1/23/2026CommentaryChina’s by now infamous property crisis is entering its fifth year. It continues to weigh on the country’s economy, holding back homebuilding, consumer spending, and investments in business expansion and modernization.Milton Ezrati is a contributing editor at The National Interest, an affiliate of the Center for the Study of Human Capital at the University at Buffalo (SUNY), and chief economist for Vested, a New York-based communications firm. Before joining Vested, he served as chief market strategist and economist for Lord, Abbett & Co. He also writes frequently for City Journal and blogs regularly for Forbes. His latest book is “Thirty Tomorrows: The Next Three Decades of Globalization, Demographics, and How We Will Live.”Author’s Selected Articles