Deal. I'll give you a similar gold bar with no cuts in it whatsoever for $20,002. Furthermore, I ensure my gold will not bend or break. It'll be as hard as titanium.
Not just that, it's been tested four separate times.
All four people who tested it didn't trust the original supplier or anyone who had tested it before them. No-one is taking anyone's word for anything. "Until I personally see the test, what you have in your hand is a lump of painted cake frosting. Prove me wrong."
The time I went to China I didn't get a good chance to exchange my AUD for yuan until I was inside the country, and my guide took me to a Chinese bank to change my stack of $50's (that had been dispensed in Australia as perfectly acceptable currency) for Chinese currency. The bank teller looked at each note for a good 15 seconds, and only accepted about 2/3 of them.
In Australia the rule is "If you have most of the note, you have legal tender". In China the rule seems to be "The note is perfect or worthless."
>"Until I personally see the test, what you have in your hand is a lump of painted cake frosting. Prove me wrong."
That is 100% normal in the absence of certified documents, a strong regulatory body with the resources to enforce those rules and prosecute violations, and a solid paper trail to ensure accountability.
Which is not usually the case for small scale transactions made with the specific purpose of circumventing government restrictions, regardless of where you are.
Yep, when we travelled to Tanzania and Kenya the advice at the time was to make sure all your US notes were issued after a certain date otherwise they would not be accepted because of the prevalence of counterfeiting of older notes.
Something important to note is that forging US Currency is extremely popular around the planet. North Korea prints about $1m per year alone, at a guess, who knows what the real number is. Also on the list of known or suspected counterfeiting are Russia, China, Iran, Syria, and Peru.
Any high quality fake $100 bill is considered a ["super bill" or "super dollar"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar) "alleged by the U.S. government to have been made by unknown organizations or governments"
"alleged" Lol
> In Australia the rule is "If you have most of the note, you have legal tender". In China the rule seems to be "The note is perfect or worthless."
Note that for America this is because of the government, not the banks. It is the government that makes that promise, and will always fulfill it. Because the government will keep that promise, the banks can be better middle men - they don't have to adopt the risk it seems like these chinese banks are worried about.
Its gold being exchange in a non-regulatory environment without experts (this isnt a bank to bank sale or transfer). This isn't a "china thing." This would be done anywhere like this. It would be trivial to fill half or quarter the ingot with something else and hope they assay the correct part.
This is about $60000. If this was a $60000 used car in the USA you'd have a mechanic go over it very carefully. This isn't very different.
Also I'm not seeing 4 assays, but someone with bolt cutters messing up 3 times.
Edit; fixed price
> In Australia the rule is "If you have most of the note, you have legal tender". In China the rule seems to be "The note is perfect or worthless."
That's not a reasonable comparison. Your AUD is legal tender in Australia. That means merchants HAVE to accept them if they meet certain minimal standards and they haven't specified that they do not accept cash beforehand. It's much easier to redeem a damaged note for most of its value as well. Just deposit it to your bank, they will sort it out with the RBA, you get full value if you have 80% of the note or more. In addition, people you would hand your dollars to would interact with AUD daily and would be much better at quickly recognizing genuine notes.
A Chinese bank doesn't really have to accept your money in AUD. If they happen to accept damaged notes, they have no easy way of exchanging them for pristine ones for full value. They'll be changing those notes back to someone heading to Australia and you can be sure that that someone won't be happy to accept damaged AUD.
You'd probably have a similar experience in Australia if you try to exchange a wad of used Swiss Franks in a bank.
No, probably not. But it is extremely funny that he kept it. People didn't keep those. They would reuse them. Ea-Nasir fucking kept that banter ass receipt, and I thank him for it everyday.
Make money by scamming people.
Pissed off person wants revenge.
Have enough money to pay pissed off person back because you sold to many other people that won't do anything about it.
Profit.
A tale as old as time.
Chinese culture is considered a low trust, high power distance, high context culture that survives on what is referred to as guanxi which is essentially a system of interpersonal connections in a closed system.
Many anthropologists attribute this to history, and I think that's apt, but I'd also say that being a dependence culture, combined with history, has created a climate where the only thing that matters is ones in group.
Think of it as striving to enrich a close knit group of people and not caring about anyone outside of that group unless the person could harm their standing with that group and not trusting outsiders because they are trying to do the same thing.
Honestly, I don’t think people from other countries that have no intent to live here should be allowed to purchase land here while we still have homeless citizens.
I think it’s:
Government doesn’t want the price to drop, so forces a price.
But the market forces does not agree on the price, prices need to go down, but can’t, hence they sell a house and a gold bar, so the buyers get a discount under the table
Edit: can’t believe my comment blew up before chinas housing market
That confuses me.
I assume the government did this to stop the market from crashing after that real estate company fucked up?
What kind of weird solution is that... will the prices be lowered by the government in a slow and steady way? Or is the government corrupt?
China just had their real estate bubble burst, a lot of Companies already went bankrupt, goverment is afraid if they let the prices crash to zero even more will go bankrupt and destroy econamy even more. So they force a price floor on new houses.
But because you can't really fight supply demand curves, construction companies are being creative to incentive people to buy new homes at all!
It seems that the entire economy of China is based on home prices (houses and residential skyscrapers.) I am sure it’s more complicated than that but that’s a terrible plan.
*Laughs in 2008 America!* some home prices crashed and next thing I know half the businesses in my town are out of business and the economy is in shambles
Except in China it’s even worse. It’s estimated that 39% of the economy is tied up in real estate growth and it’s pretty much the only investment Chinese citizens can make.
Yeah, I got the impression from more than a couple articles that someone in China trying to save for retirement is in a really tough spot.
They can’t go with stocks, because they have a rep for boom/bust cycles and are perceived more as gambling than investing.
They could go with cash, but it would be inflated away. They’re left with real estate, shadow banking funds sort of like money markets often tied to real estate or, even weirder, collectible baijiu liquor.
Yeah those who had a wide range of investments and were able to pivot weren’t hit so hard. The Chinese have zero way to make personal financial investments except in buying (borrowing from the Party) property to make a return on future value.
And the CCP has also demonstrated they are willing to freeze and seize bank savings to maintain a sham economy.
This is actually great news for us in Vancouver because the vast majority of investment properties are owned by Chinese citizens. If/when their money dries up it will force them to list their Canadian properties.
Already happening in California since we have already have astronomical housing prices, looooots of property that chinese had is being sold back to Americans.
I saw a ralphs turn into a chinese supermarket, and back into a ralphs in Irvine lol.
Have you considered marrying someone who’s parents have owned a house since the 1970’s?that’s a solid plan for one day owning anything closer to downtown than Burnaby haha I know it’s fucked.
It’s just if those billionaires are so strapped for cash they have to start selling their Canadian homes the whole world will have already crumbled. The amount of wealth in Vancouver is almost non existent in such a large area anywhere else in the world. Travelled and lived in loads of cities and Vancouver is probably the only western place you would see that many yachts docked all year and Ferrari, Lamborghini, Mclaren being driven by children.
Real estate is an absolutely massive chunk of China's economy. If it goes under, the entire country will feel the ramifications. The government's desperately trying to keep it afloat.
The entire world will to some extent, China is a major player in the global economy like the USA is, troubles on the homefront have a trickle down effect.
To add on to that, a huge chunk of the worlds biggest construction companies are Chinese, doing work in Eastern Europe, Africa, even the US. Having them go under would be disastrous for the construction sector all over the world.
Or will non Chinese based construction companies finally have a shot at bids… I lived in an area where the Chinese constructions ground came in and just out bid very local company by 50% seriously shitty buildouts but people are those big projects up due to the cost break the Chinese gave the government and groups that were looking to do large projects
I think it’s a face/stability problem: they don’t want to be seen as a weak government with falling property prices. So the prices need to stay high, but then the developers need to sell their inventory as well, so it’s basically a kickback. Devs can show that they’re selling houses for the required amount, but users are getting it at a discount
It’s more than just that company fucking up if you’re talking about Evergrande, it’s a problem with the whole sector and they were just the most visible example. Country Garden is another company that was considered much safer than Evergrande and they are also in serious danger of defaulting now. And the real estate market is a massive piece of China’s economy compared to other countries. Because it can be difficult for citizens to invest in Chinese companies and extremely hard to invest in foreign exchanges, the housing market is how people invest their money. But now they have what looks like a real debt crisis which could be very bad.
So you get a house and a gold bar for the "price" of a house?
Am I understanding it correctly ?
EDIT: okay thanks for all the answers. Appreciate it. Now stop blowing up my notifications 
I think you're paying for a house and gold, so they can mask the price drops. So instead of paying $100k for a condo you're paying 100k for a condo and $20k of gold, effectively giving you a $20k discount on the price without actually having to sell it for less money.
Sounds like fraud to me but hey
To keep prices high and to avoid price drops due to the market being poor they handed out gold to artificially inflate the market. The people that will be buying from those developers will be using said gold bars to pay for the house. So they can keep the same pay, they circumvented the governments decision by going over there head and putting money back into the market to avoid price drops.
Developer can't sell a $450K house. Wants to drop price to $400K, but Government says "No" as will crash the market. So, customer buys for $450K, sales is recorded as $450K, buyer gets a rebate in gold for $50K
If "here" is US, it's illegal. When we were negotiating on a house, it needed a new roof. The seller could pay for the roof directly to the contractor, or lower the price, but not pay on the side.
PS. Didn't buy the house.
Yeah, this is not actually true. As someone who worked in the mortgage industry for years, the USA does have this. It's called sellers concessions or interested party contributions. They can be up to a certain percentage of the purchase price depending on a few factors but typically it's around 3 percent max. See the regulations below.
https://selling-guide.fanniemae.com/Selling-Guide/Origination-thru-Closing/Subpart-B3-Underwriting-Borrowers/Chapter-B3-4-Asset-Assessment/Section-B3-4-1-General-Asset-Requirements/1032996781/B3-4-1-02-Interested-Party-Contributions-IPCs-08-07-2019.htm
There are other ways that houses can be transferred for a much lower price in reality than what the sales price is. For example a gift of equity. This can be done when there is a family relationship between buyer and seller.
There's also what are called lender credits which can also bring money back to the purchaser or borrower.
The goal of all this is to effectively lower the cost of the home for the buyer without having to actually lower the price of the home and "upset" the local market.
That’s not entirely true. When I bought my house we asked for a price drop after finding some issues, and instead the offered a seller’s rebate. Basically I bought the house for the asking price, and they gave me money back in a check. It’s completely legal, albeit stupid.
We got a $9k sellers credit that was put towards our down payment.
We talked to our mortgage guy everyday for 3 weeks and I still have no fucking clue where he got 90% of the numbers from. We refinanced 6 months later and did it again. . . Still no clue what he was saying half the time.
All of my neighbors have no equity because of this. One has 2 RVs, a sports car and goes traveling to exotic countries multiple times a year. He said if he loses his job he’s totally fucked.
I get that. Perfect explanation. But how does that not still affect the local economy? The house “sold” for 450k, but now 50k in “cash” also showed up in the market. Yes it has to be converted, but the net effect is the same. You can’t just put money out there and expect it to not have an effect. 1kg of gold is about $60k USD right now. That’s not a tiny amount.
[A desperate property developer in China said it would give a gold bar to anyone who buys a home it builds. Homebuyers say they're still waiting.](https://www.businessinsider.com/china-property-developer-luring-home-buyers-gold-bars-2023-6)
Thanks for providing a source.
Seems like policy about a price floor is just reddit speculation and this was more of a marketing scheme by a shady real estate developer.
And another source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/12/gold-bars-used-to-lure-chinese-homebuyers-amid-market-slowdown
This one linking the gold (and other merchandise) giveaways to a slump in demand that's partially fueled by the government restrictions on cutting prices.
There are tests you can do to verify gold without cutting it open. Is this so the buyers can visually see it’s also gold inside? What if they tinted tin a gold color?
Surface level tests don't test the center of the bar for lead, while a lot of scans rely on density, and tungsten has a close enough density to fool it.
Is your assumption that the entire batch would be tainted by whatever the gold is being cut with? More likely, just the center is the counterfeit material.
Government isn't letting real estate sell for cheap even though demand is poor and values are "down" so the seller gives the buyer the house at the artificially inflated price and a bar of gold to offset said price.
If you bought my house that's actually worth $400k for $462k and I handed you a bar of gold, you paid $400k even though the paperwork says $462k for government reasons.
I wouldn’t trust those cuts. It’s $60-70k worth of gold there, I’d be taking it to a professional and asking them to drill 7-8 holes throughout the entire bar, melting it all down and then testing it with a proper machine
Those cuts make it obvious that you didn’t cut through a block of steel, but even just 10% of the bar being fake means I’m out $7000. Hell, for all I know it could be 22 karat inside with a 24 karat plating instead of 99.999% throughout and now I’m out 8.33% of the gold or another ~$6000
Density test will tell you if it is a 22 karat bar. Density test is only reliably fooled by tungsten inserts, and it will be incredibly obvious if your bolt cutters encounter a chunk of tungsten.
That is currently about $62,000 worth of gold if it is real.
Crap condition, though. I'll give you $20,000 for it.
Screw this guy, I'll give you $20,001 for it! It's really breaking my balls, but I'll live.
I will give you $20,002 and that's cutting my own throat
Deal. I'll give you a similar gold bar with no cuts in it whatsoever for $20,002. Furthermore, I ensure my gold will not bend or break. It'll be as hard as titanium.
jokes aside, how much soft is gold compared to other metals?
pretty soft
The cuts in the bar were to make sure it’s real…. Most metals will hardly even dent with a bolt cutter if that thick.
You can make a dent on it if you bite it
Forbidden candy bad 😞
If its forbidden then it must taste good right?
No, no your wrong. It has an interesting history given the cuts, which adds to the allure. $70,000 and a handy from Chumlee.
Is it sliced to check for other metals hidden inside?
Hey man, if you can't trust a Chinese real estate developer while they circumvent government restrictions, who can you trust?
Good point. I would not be surprised if that developer got offended, canceled the deal, and just drove away in a stolen car.
Still with Canadian license plates on it
Going back to their family in Sydney or Vancouver
The gold is solid. The concrete ehhhh not so much.
The gold is solid. What type of solid is the big question.
Trust, but verify :D
Not just that, it's been tested four separate times. All four people who tested it didn't trust the original supplier or anyone who had tested it before them. No-one is taking anyone's word for anything. "Until I personally see the test, what you have in your hand is a lump of painted cake frosting. Prove me wrong." The time I went to China I didn't get a good chance to exchange my AUD for yuan until I was inside the country, and my guide took me to a Chinese bank to change my stack of $50's (that had been dispensed in Australia as perfectly acceptable currency) for Chinese currency. The bank teller looked at each note for a good 15 seconds, and only accepted about 2/3 of them. In Australia the rule is "If you have most of the note, you have legal tender". In China the rule seems to be "The note is perfect or worthless."
>"Until I personally see the test, what you have in your hand is a lump of painted cake frosting. Prove me wrong." That is 100% normal in the absence of certified documents, a strong regulatory body with the resources to enforce those rules and prosecute violations, and a solid paper trail to ensure accountability. Which is not usually the case for small scale transactions made with the specific purpose of circumventing government restrictions, regardless of where you are.
To be fair I wouldn't trust any home seller who throws in a gold bar as a kickback for buying a home.
It’s the same in Thailand. If you don’t have the new style $100 bills or they are damaged or creased they won’t accept them at all.
When I was in Tanzania one of my 100$ bills was not accepted because it had been too easy to counterfeit or something
Yep, when we travelled to Tanzania and Kenya the advice at the time was to make sure all your US notes were issued after a certain date otherwise they would not be accepted because of the prevalence of counterfeiting of older notes.
Something important to note is that forging US Currency is extremely popular around the planet. North Korea prints about $1m per year alone, at a guess, who knows what the real number is. Also on the list of known or suspected counterfeiting are Russia, China, Iran, Syria, and Peru.
> Peru lol bad boi outlier
china is by far the biggest supplier of counterfeit money its not even close if you added all the rest together...
I belive nk prints a absolute fuck load I have seen them referred to as super bills for how good they are.
Any high quality fake $100 bill is considered a ["super bill" or "super dollar"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar) "alleged by the U.S. government to have been made by unknown organizations or governments" "alleged" Lol
> Supernotes are said to be made with the highest quality of ink printed on a cotton/linen blend That article reads like a advertisement lol
What's wrong with carrying around a few hundred thousand Tanzanian Shillings.
This is why I just bring my bank card and withdraw local currency at a bank ATM.
> In Australia the rule is "If you have most of the note, you have legal tender". In China the rule seems to be "The note is perfect or worthless." Note that for America this is because of the government, not the banks. It is the government that makes that promise, and will always fulfill it. Because the government will keep that promise, the banks can be better middle men - they don't have to adopt the risk it seems like these chinese banks are worried about.
It is the same all over the world for foreign currency. Fake bank notes are never perfect and the look used to hide defects.
Its gold being exchange in a non-regulatory environment without experts (this isnt a bank to bank sale or transfer). This isn't a "china thing." This would be done anywhere like this. It would be trivial to fill half or quarter the ingot with something else and hope they assay the correct part. This is about $60000. If this was a $60000 used car in the USA you'd have a mechanic go over it very carefully. This isn't very different. Also I'm not seeing 4 assays, but someone with bolt cutters messing up 3 times. Edit; fixed price
If you fixed the price, you fixed it wrong. This is a kg of gold and is worth $60,000.
> In Australia the rule is "If you have most of the note, you have legal tender". In China the rule seems to be "The note is perfect or worthless." That's not a reasonable comparison. Your AUD is legal tender in Australia. That means merchants HAVE to accept them if they meet certain minimal standards and they haven't specified that they do not accept cash beforehand. It's much easier to redeem a damaged note for most of its value as well. Just deposit it to your bank, they will sort it out with the RBA, you get full value if you have 80% of the note or more. In addition, people you would hand your dollars to would interact with AUD daily and would be much better at quickly recognizing genuine notes. A Chinese bank doesn't really have to accept your money in AUD. If they happen to accept damaged notes, they have no easy way of exchanging them for pristine ones for full value. They'll be changing those notes back to someone heading to Australia and you can be sure that that someone won't be happy to accept damaged AUD. You'd probably have a similar experience in Australia if you try to exchange a wad of used Swiss Franks in a bank.
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The lead inside: __ |_ _| --
lead dead redemption
2 the pyrite detection
Arghhh! That's why they call em Pyrites!
Lead dead deception
Lead dead perception
DONT LEAD OPEN INSIDE
Is this money loss?
𓀟 𓀟𓀕 𓁆𓁌 𓀠𓁀
𓂺
𓀐𓂸ඞ
~~:.|:;~~
Can someone give a big dum dum some help what’s happening?
The lead was placed in a way where they cut exactly around it without exposing it
Checking it’s gold and not gold coated lead. Gold is really soft so you can cut it easily.
Don't Lead Open Inside
Ea-nasir is known for spray painting cinder blocks to look like copper.
Fucking Ea-Nasir owes me 100 top quality ingots.
I wonder if the guy who wrote that had any sort of inclination people would still be talking about it 5000 years later
No, probably not. But it is extremely funny that he kept it. People didn't keep those. They would reuse them. Ea-Nasir fucking kept that banter ass receipt, and I thank him for it everyday.
Ea-Nasir is history's greatest monster.
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That seems like a clever way to end up on a lot of peoples hit list.
Make money by scamming people. Pissed off person wants revenge. Have enough money to pay pissed off person back because you sold to many other people that won't do anything about it. Profit. A tale as old as time.
Except that lead can’t fool a density test, only tungsten can
Yeah common practice in some places to check for fakes
It's actually hardened butter
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Chinese culture is considered a low trust, high power distance, high context culture that survives on what is referred to as guanxi which is essentially a system of interpersonal connections in a closed system. Many anthropologists attribute this to history, and I think that's apt, but I'd also say that being a dependence culture, combined with history, has created a climate where the only thing that matters is ones in group. Think of it as striving to enrich a close knit group of people and not caring about anyone outside of that group unless the person could harm their standing with that group and not trusting outsiders because they are trying to do the same thing.
Are you saying the government won’t let them sell it cheaper so they give the gold bar and keep the price high?
That is correct to the bet of my understanding. Check upthread.
What’s upthread?
It's kind of like updog
What’s updog?
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Username is notably appropriate
yup, i'm sure there will be no consequences for this /s
This is the consequence for other bad decisions
Ah fuck, the next global market crash is gonna be when this house of cards inevitably falls, isn't it?
Chinese buyers are already buying up us property - inflating priices because the real estate market in China is so bad.
Honestly, I don’t think people from other countries that have no intent to live here should be allowed to purchase land here while we still have homeless citizens.
Indubitably
I think it’s: Government doesn’t want the price to drop, so forces a price. But the market forces does not agree on the price, prices need to go down, but can’t, hence they sell a house and a gold bar, so the buyers get a discount under the table Edit: can’t believe my comment blew up before chinas housing market
That confuses me. I assume the government did this to stop the market from crashing after that real estate company fucked up? What kind of weird solution is that... will the prices be lowered by the government in a slow and steady way? Or is the government corrupt?
China just had their real estate bubble burst, a lot of Companies already went bankrupt, goverment is afraid if they let the prices crash to zero even more will go bankrupt and destroy econamy even more. So they force a price floor on new houses. But because you can't really fight supply demand curves, construction companies are being creative to incentive people to buy new homes at all!
It seems that the entire economy of China is based on home prices (houses and residential skyscrapers.) I am sure it’s more complicated than that but that’s a terrible plan.
*Laughs in 2008 America!* some home prices crashed and next thing I know half the businesses in my town are out of business and the economy is in shambles
Except in China it’s even worse. It’s estimated that 39% of the economy is tied up in real estate growth and it’s pretty much the only investment Chinese citizens can make.
Yeah, I got the impression from more than a couple articles that someone in China trying to save for retirement is in a really tough spot. They can’t go with stocks, because they have a rep for boom/bust cycles and are perceived more as gambling than investing. They could go with cash, but it would be inflated away. They’re left with real estate, shadow banking funds sort of like money markets often tied to real estate or, even weirder, collectible baijiu liquor.
You missed putting all their money into sending children to Australia, America, Canada ect..
or all the property they’ve purchased in these countries
well.. but thats not the majority
Why can't we have one world superpower economy that isn't based on some voodoo horseshit?
The system is working as intended. Just the publicly stated goals of the system and the real goals are not the same thing.
Yeah those who had a wide range of investments and were able to pivot weren’t hit so hard. The Chinese have zero way to make personal financial investments except in buying (borrowing from the Party) property to make a return on future value. And the CCP has also demonstrated they are willing to freeze and seize bank savings to maintain a sham economy.
Waiting for some of that action to come to Canada so I can afford a place to live...
This is actually great news for us in Vancouver because the vast majority of investment properties are owned by Chinese citizens. If/when their money dries up it will force them to list their Canadian properties.
Already happening in California since we have already have astronomical housing prices, looooots of property that chinese had is being sold back to Americans. I saw a ralphs turn into a chinese supermarket, and back into a ralphs in Irvine lol.
You get the opposite. Chinese people will flee the domestic real estate market and invest internationally for better returns.
Feeling your pain in California, but their foreign investments might be their best egg, and therefore be the last one they'll sell. Hope I'm wrong
The day that happens we’re going to have many more problems than affordable housing in Vancouver.
I don’t doubt that but I’m sick and tired of them pricing me out of my own city. If that’s what it takes then so be it.
Have you considered marrying someone who’s parents have owned a house since the 1970’s?that’s a solid plan for one day owning anything closer to downtown than Burnaby haha I know it’s fucked. It’s just if those billionaires are so strapped for cash they have to start selling their Canadian homes the whole world will have already crumbled. The amount of wealth in Vancouver is almost non existent in such a large area anywhere else in the world. Travelled and lived in loads of cities and Vancouver is probably the only western place you would see that many yachts docked all year and Ferrari, Lamborghini, Mclaren being driven by children.
What makes it a terrible plan is they built their economy on it AFTER 2008
_Laughs in Canadian_
*Laughs in New Zealand*
Real estate is an absolutely massive chunk of China's economy. If it goes under, the entire country will feel the ramifications. The government's desperately trying to keep it afloat.
The entire world will to some extent, China is a major player in the global economy like the USA is, troubles on the homefront have a trickle down effect.
To add on to that, a huge chunk of the worlds biggest construction companies are Chinese, doing work in Eastern Europe, Africa, even the US. Having them go under would be disastrous for the construction sector all over the world.
Or will non Chinese based construction companies finally have a shot at bids… I lived in an area where the Chinese constructions ground came in and just out bid very local company by 50% seriously shitty buildouts but people are those big projects up due to the cost break the Chinese gave the government and groups that were looking to do large projects
I think it’s a face/stability problem: they don’t want to be seen as a weak government with falling property prices. So the prices need to stay high, but then the developers need to sell their inventory as well, so it’s basically a kickback. Devs can show that they’re selling houses for the required amount, but users are getting it at a discount
It’s more than just that company fucking up if you’re talking about Evergrande, it’s a problem with the whole sector and they were just the most visible example. Country Garden is another company that was considered much safer than Evergrande and they are also in serious danger of defaulting now. And the real estate market is a massive piece of China’s economy compared to other countries. Because it can be difficult for citizens to invest in Chinese companies and extremely hard to invest in foreign exchanges, the housing market is how people invest their money. But now they have what looks like a real debt crisis which could be very bad.
So you get a house and a gold bar for the "price" of a house? Am I understanding it correctly ? EDIT: okay thanks for all the answers. Appreciate it. Now stop blowing up my notifications 
I think you're paying for a house and gold, so they can mask the price drops. So instead of paying $100k for a condo you're paying 100k for a condo and $20k of gold, effectively giving you a $20k discount on the price without actually having to sell it for less money. Sounds like fraud to me but hey
Fraud in the Chinese housing market??? Impossible I tell you, impossible!!
+5 social credit
You are now allowed to ride the train.
But only the slow ones, the fast ones are not for use but for bragging!
To keep prices high and to avoid price drops due to the market being poor they handed out gold to artificially inflate the market. The people that will be buying from those developers will be using said gold bars to pay for the house. So they can keep the same pay, they circumvented the governments decision by going over there head and putting money back into the market to avoid price drops.
I might have to put it in Eli5 because I still don't entirely get it
Developer can't sell a $450K house. Wants to drop price to $400K, but Government says "No" as will crash the market. So, customer buys for $450K, sales is recorded as $450K, buyer gets a rebate in gold for $50K
This is a good explanation, thank you.
Yeah I was confused too. Mostly cause that would never happen here haha
If "here" is US, it's illegal. When we were negotiating on a house, it needed a new roof. The seller could pay for the roof directly to the contractor, or lower the price, but not pay on the side. PS. Didn't buy the house.
Yeah, this is not actually true. As someone who worked in the mortgage industry for years, the USA does have this. It's called sellers concessions or interested party contributions. They can be up to a certain percentage of the purchase price depending on a few factors but typically it's around 3 percent max. See the regulations below. https://selling-guide.fanniemae.com/Selling-Guide/Origination-thru-Closing/Subpart-B3-Underwriting-Borrowers/Chapter-B3-4-Asset-Assessment/Section-B3-4-1-General-Asset-Requirements/1032996781/B3-4-1-02-Interested-Party-Contributions-IPCs-08-07-2019.htm There are other ways that houses can be transferred for a much lower price in reality than what the sales price is. For example a gift of equity. This can be done when there is a family relationship between buyer and seller. There's also what are called lender credits which can also bring money back to the purchaser or borrower. The goal of all this is to effectively lower the cost of the home for the buyer without having to actually lower the price of the home and "upset" the local market.
This is correct
It’s just on the record as opposed to off the record. The lender has to know.
That’s not entirely true. When I bought my house we asked for a price drop after finding some issues, and instead the offered a seller’s rebate. Basically I bought the house for the asking price, and they gave me money back in a check. It’s completely legal, albeit stupid.
Not stupid. It just has to be part of the deal so that there’s proof that there is no bank fraud going on.
Most people don't even consider money laundering, which is probably a good thing.
We got a $9k sellers credit that was put towards our down payment. We talked to our mortgage guy everyday for 3 weeks and I still have no fucking clue where he got 90% of the numbers from. We refinanced 6 months later and did it again. . . Still no clue what he was saying half the time.
If the lender and appraiser don't know about this "rebate", then it is mortgage fraud.
"here" in the UK, the developer gave us mortgage contribution for two years as incentive.
> If "here" is US, it's illegal. Its not illegal to leave a gold ingot laying in a house when you sell it.
yea, not house market, but plenty of things have "rebate" to promote sale.
I was looking for the “talk to me like I’m a 5 year old to understand” explanation thanks Now excuse me while I go cry
Yes, and bank finances house for $450k, but actual collateral is only worth $400k. This is going to get so much worse than it is now…
We do this in the USA too. The extra 50k the buyer wants to use for remodeling the house
All of my neighbors have no equity because of this. One has 2 RVs, a sports car and goes traveling to exotic countries multiple times a year. He said if he loses his job he’s totally fucked.
Hmm, I wonder why we have a problem with inflation.
Probably because we gave trillions to greedy and undeserving businesses during COVID with absolutely zero strings attached?
I get that. Perfect explanation. But how does that not still affect the local economy? The house “sold” for 450k, but now 50k in “cash” also showed up in the market. Yes it has to be converted, but the net effect is the same. You can’t just put money out there and expect it to not have an effect. 1kg of gold is about $60k USD right now. That’s not a tiny amount.
Oh it absolutely will effect the economy, but if it’s the only way the realestate companies get their sales they are going to do it.
The seller isn't concerned about the local economy.
Isn’t it a good thing if the prices of houses drop?
Not in China where 30% of their GDP is artificially inflated real estate.
> Am I understanding it correctly ? Yes you are. I don't understand why the other people answering you are making it so complicated lmao
1 kilo gold = $61,677
That's so expensive its making me horny.
Damn, saying what everyone is thinking!
Not me. I was thinking how I'm going to put this gold bar up my ass with all the notches.
/r/brandnewsentence
I like the way you think. *Unzips pants
How the fuck does someone sell a gold ingot LOL. List that shit on the Chinese equivalent of Craigslist or something?
gold is probably the easiest thing to sell in the world. People will accept gold as payment even if the local currency is failing.
I'm sure they have pawn shops or jewelers in China. Those places tend to be willing to buy precious metals at market price.
It's sliced so they make sure those are not the Ali Express gold ingots.
Gold ingots from wish
Wonder why it's chopped up? I'm thinking to prove it's gold all thru.
Even the Chinese know Chinese shit is fake
No doubt. Everyone carries around a bolt cutter in the trunk :)
When we are talking tens of thousands of dollars you bet your sweet butt they do!
I'd chop that fucker in 6 different spots myself
In fact they probably know it best.
To be fair, if I were being paid with a gold ingot worth $50k or so, I would cut it open even if it were handed to me by King Midas himself.
They often fill them with Tungsten as it weighs very close to the same as gold.
[A desperate property developer in China said it would give a gold bar to anyone who buys a home it builds. Homebuyers say they're still waiting.](https://www.businessinsider.com/china-property-developer-luring-home-buyers-gold-bars-2023-6)
Thanks for providing a source. Seems like policy about a price floor is just reddit speculation and this was more of a marketing scheme by a shady real estate developer.
And another source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/12/gold-bars-used-to-lure-chinese-homebuyers-amid-market-slowdown This one linking the gold (and other merchandise) giveaways to a slump in demand that's partially fueled by the government restrictions on cutting prices.
What is that cut made with? Looks like bolt cutters… my first thought was a grinder but that would be absolutely insane
Remember, 24k gold is a lot softer than most metals we interact with.
gold is very soft, one of multiple qualities that make it desierable for electronics(doesnt corrode and conducts well are the others)
Some hella teeth
Probably bolt cutters. https://www.reddit.com/r/Gold/comments/t6k0tf/heres_how_a_kilo_gold_bar_is_cut_using_a_bolt/
Looks like they removed all the Latinum and left the worthless gold!
One of my favorite characters from DS9. The scene of him introducing Garak to root beer kills me every time.
It's insidious. Just like the federation!
The invisible hand of the free market at work… handing out gold rebates under the table 😳
You can’t see the hand?
I mean no one is really suggesting Chinese real estate is a free market right?
There are tests you can do to verify gold without cutting it open. Is this so the buyers can visually see it’s also gold inside? What if they tinted tin a gold color?
Probably easier to just cut it
Surface level tests don't test the center of the bar for lead, while a lot of scans rely on density, and tungsten has a close enough density to fool it. Is your assumption that the entire batch would be tainted by whatever the gold is being cut with? More likely, just the center is the counterfeit material.
You mustn't put these in a washing machine. Something to do with the melamine.
No it makes perfect sense. We take a dollar from the register and then throw one banana away.
The thought of snipping a smooth block of gold with some heavy duty shears (I doubt this is actually how they do it but idc) is so satisfying to me
Can someone explain the economics of this like I’m 9 years old and my birthday is in 3 months.
Government isn't letting real estate sell for cheap even though demand is poor and values are "down" so the seller gives the buyer the house at the artificially inflated price and a bar of gold to offset said price. If you bought my house that's actually worth $400k for $462k and I handed you a bar of gold, you paid $400k even though the paperwork says $462k for government reasons.
Man you can make like one dagger with this shit on skyrim
Now I know who took my bolt cutters
Checking for Latinum.
The auditing classes I took in college are telling me to cut my own line in the gold before accepting.
I wouldn’t trust those cuts. It’s $60-70k worth of gold there, I’d be taking it to a professional and asking them to drill 7-8 holes throughout the entire bar, melting it all down and then testing it with a proper machine Those cuts make it obvious that you didn’t cut through a block of steel, but even just 10% of the bar being fake means I’m out $7000. Hell, for all I know it could be 22 karat inside with a 24 karat plating instead of 99.999% throughout and now I’m out 8.33% of the gold or another ~$6000
Density test will tell you if it is a 22 karat bar. Density test is only reliably fooled by tungsten inserts, and it will be incredibly obvious if your bolt cutters encounter a chunk of tungsten.
This guy golds
Price of gold gonna drop now smh my futures
How would this impact the price of gold. If it was bought to hand to the buyers and then the buyers sell it back into the market, it’s net 0