Good money on the Chinese real estate bubble popping this year. It is already stagnating, even in tier one cities. Since the whole system is set up on valuations going up significantly each year, a bit of prolonged stagnation should bring the entire system down unless the government steps in with heavy inflation.
Nobody wants to be a loser in China, and no one will sell there house if they can't make 200% profit but the first-hand property has to get sold because those property developers are leveraged like heck. That is where you'll see breakage first.
Most speculators own 3+ apartments (usually unfinished and not even rentable!), so they have plenty of roofs over there heads. In Beijing alone, they estimate that some 40-60% of all apartments are not in use!
My guess is that the government will eventually go with a property tax, which will make it expensive to just hold property and do nothing with it (this is what they should have done to pop this current bubble). They won't do anything with the apartments that are underwater (no margin calls) but they'll reclaim anyone who gets behind on their mortgage diligently (and many will just walk away).
