A report from the Wall Street Journal on China. "When she was a teenager in the 1970s, Zhou Xiaoguang peddled trinkets city to city and slept on trains, a formative chapter in her creation of the world’s largest costume jeweler, Neoglory Holdings Group Co. Leveraging her empire of baubles, China’s 'fashion-accessory queen' added hotels, offices and malls, and erected the tallest skyscraper in Yiwu, a trading city south of Shanghai."

"Now, China’s economic slowdown is making Ms. Zhou known for something else: her billions of dollars in debt. A bankruptcy court in April said Neoglory 'is unable to repay a due debt, has insufficient assets for repaying all its debts and is apparently insolvent.'"

"For a generation, China’s explosive growth rewarded bold expansion and many borrowed heavily to seize the moment. In the past decade, China’s overall debt quadrupled, to around three times the value of last year’s national output. Corporate debt accounts for two-thirds of the total, or more than $26 trillion last year, according to the Bank for International Settlements."

"Many Chinese entrepreneurs tend to 'borrow as much as possible, even if the core business doesn’t need it,' said Joseph P.H. Fan, a professor of finance and accounting at Chinese University of Hong Kong. China’s top-down system showers successful entrepreneurs with new business opportunities and the political backing to get them done, he said. It is a winning strategy to capitalize on the boom times—but doesn’t offer much shelter in a slowdown."

"The private company reports only selective financial information, such as through a listed subsidiary. Property unit Neoglory Prosperity Inc. reported a 215 million yuan loss for 2018 and said it was owed over 4.2 billion yuan from the parent company. Professor Fan got to know Mrs. Zhou while researching private wealth in China. Neoglory, he said, is a textbook example of China’s 'misallocation of financial resources.'"

"Neoglory added villa and apartment projects, financed by bonds. The company doubled its real-estate holdings to 30% of assets. Ms. Zhou’s bulk-up on property was late. By the time she dedicated Neoglory’s 362-room Shangri-La Hotel with a sketch of peacocks in June 2017, her first bond was nearing its expiration. To repay bondholders, Neoglory is trying to shed property and stakes in financial firms, according to regulatory statements. Lights on the Shangri-La spell 'For Rent.'"

"At Neoglory Place mall, abandoned shops far outnumber going concerns. Over sunflower seeds and tea outside 29-year-old Shan Qingqing’s fashion boutique on a recent afternoon, many of the remaining merchants were sealing plans for a rent strike. Ms. Shan hadn’t rung up a sale since the previous week. 'They made a mistake investing here,' she said."

The Vancouver Sun in Canada. "With the first half of 2019 in the books, local realtor Barry Magee reviewed sales data from the Real Estate Boards of Greater Vancouver and the Fraser Valley. He said he expected to see a slowdown given the market recently. But the extent of that plummet, Magee said, was striking. In Greater Vancouver and the Fraser Valley, the combined value of properties sold in the first half of 2019 was $15.6 billion, less than half the total of $38.1 billion recorded over the same period in 2016, at the market’s high point."

"This week, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver’s monthly report showed its benchmark price for homes in Metro Vancouver fell below $1 million for the first time in two years, and reported the lowest June sales numbers in almost 20 years. 'I do think it’s a good thing, in my personal opinion. I’m firmly on the side that lower prices are better for society in general,' said Magee. 'It’s really just coming back down to reality.'"

"Magee agrees that Vancouver’s boom in recent years was largely driven by external demand. 'It is incredibly clear that money earned outside of our economy was driving the unprecedented real estate market from 2015 to 2017,' Magee said. 'Anyone who argues against this, after seeing $22.5 billion disappear from the market, must be financially, and emotionally, motivated by selling misinformation. The debate is over.'"

From ABC News in Australia. "Twelve per cent of Australian properties were resold at a loss — compared to what the sellers had paid for them — in the first three months of 2019. It was the highest level of loss-making sales in six years and another sign of weaker property market conditions, according to the latest 'Pain and Gain' report by property analysts CoreLogic. This was also a marked increase from 10.5 per cent (in the December 2018 quarter), and 9 per cent (in the March 2018 quarter)."

"'Australia had a total of $486.8 million in realised gross losses from resales over the March quarter, with highest share of losses nationally seen in Perth (24.8pc) and Sydney (19.9pc),' CoreLogic analyst Camer Kusher wrote in his report. The weakest property market in the March quarter was, by far, Darwin — 58.2pc of apartment vendors sold for a loss, compared to 40.8pc for house vendors. It was followed closely by losses in regional Western Australia (apartments: 47.4pc, houses: 37.3pc) and Perth (apartments: 49.2pc, houses: 28.8pc)."

The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia. "Up to a third of homes in parts of Melbourne and Sydney are being sold at a loss with the rate likely to climb higher as a combination of falling prices and owners wanting to offload their properties is wiping hundreds of millions of dollars from the market. Loss-making sales hit a six-year high in the March quarter with almost 32 per cent of dwellings in central Melbourne being sold below their purchase price with a median loss of $44,000. A year ago the loss-making rate was under 28 per cent."

"It's not just the city centre where owners are selling at a loss. Through the eastern suburbs, the loss-rate has doubled to 12 per cent or more in Glen Eira and Boroondara, and reached 24 per cent in Stonnington. Parts of Sydney have been particularly hard hit. In the March quarter last year, just 1.3 per cent of properties in Strathfield were sold at a loss but this hit 20 per cent during the first 3 months of 2019."

"A year ago not one property sold across Botany Bay was sold at a loss. In the March quarter this year almost 14 per cent were with most being held for less than three years. Lane Cove (15.2 per cent), Canterbury-Bankstown (13.8 per cent) and Ryde (15.7 per cent) also recorded some of the highest loss-making rates in the city, and the loss rate in Parramatta has soared from 5.8 per cent to now sit at 18.8 per cent."