China’s top long-term problem isn’t the trade war that dominates the social media recently. It’s a home bubble—the soaring home prices that makes landlords rich, while it shatters young people’s dreams of forming a family. Average prices of new homes in 70 Chinese cities climbed by 9.7% on an annual basis in December of 2018, up from a 9.3% in the previous month, according to Tradingeconomics.com. That’s the 44th straight month of price rises and the strongest annual gain since July 2017. Soaring home prices put homes beyond the reach of the country’s average citizen. And that hurts the country’s long-term growth ... (full story)