Real Estate Development and Overbuilding in Second- and third- tier cities in China

Abstract: This Bachelor of Science thesis focuses on the real estate development and overbuilding in China’s second- and third-tier cities. A number of interviews have been made in order to, combined with information from respected media sources, get a as neutral picture of the situation in the cities as possible. The steps toward development of new buildings are, not just in China, many and includes a number of different participants. Therefore one will find a number of different opinions as well as problems that originate with the development. The interviews that were executed for this thesis were with different people that some way or another are active or has been active in the real estate development in the country. The participants were either active in architecture, engineering, development or expertise regarding the country. All the contributors acknowledged the problem of overbuilding in China, however to what extent the problem existed according to the participants varied. Thus several articles and publications have been referred to in the thesis to exclude possible personal opinions. The thesis includes problems regarding corruption, inconclusive demand analysis’s, "Hukou", governmental visions, urbanization and finally governmental regulations. Conclusively there is not a single factor alone that led to today’s excess real estate development but many different factors that together contributed to the situation.