In this city on the water’s edge, it has already been almost ten years since a major real estate project began… only to end up being abandoned along the way. It cost billions and the promoters are doing nothing anymore.
The modern dream turns into a mirage. Futuristic buildings with infinity pools, golf course, bars and even a water park… On paper, everything suggested a phenomenal real estate project, unique in its kind. A luxurious city, designed to accommodate up to 700,000 inhabitants by 2035, in a futuristic style decor. But in reality, all this splendor has been struggling to find buyers for ten years already…
Indeed, what has already emerged from the ground remains desperately empty! The initial project was aimed at a borderline wealthy middle class, attracted by high-tech comfort and direct proximity to the beach and palm trees, to go and tan in the sun just a stone’s throw from the house. Except that the residents did not really respond to the developers’ call. Behind the veneer of this mammoth project costing $100 billion lies a completely different reality.
On social networks, videographer and globetrotter Liam Richards filmed the immense buildings of this ghost town nicknamed Forest Citylocated on an artificial island in the state of Johor, Malaysia, opposite Singapore. “Only 15% of the project actually exists. And there are literally three people living here“, he commented, exaggerating on the local population. The occupancy rate of the built housing, however, would be only 1%. Which leaves entire floors of buildings completely unoccupied.
There is a main reason which explains the lack of success of this titanic city imagined by Country Garden, one of the largest developers in China, and whose inauguration took place in 2016. The problem initially comes from the cost of purchasing housing. With a two-room apartment costing around 160,000 euros and full payment required before even moving in, buyers quickly became rare. The local population does not have the means to afford property there. But the developer was mainly targeting a wealthy Chinese clientele to invest within these subdivisions in a second home where they can easily come for vacations or to make a rental investment.
Except that the cost of living has increased sharply in China, the Covid pandemic has been there and the real estate crisis has also affected Chinese buyers. The real estate project therefore remains on hold, the construction site to continue the construction of all the infrastructures promised to buyers having not resumed and the rare inhabitants dream of reselling their apartment but the price per square meter has become derisory and it is obvious that it is not possible for a single second to make a capital gain. Future buyers would still have to show interest. A challenge for local real estate agents!
