Fathom has been warning for years that things have gone badly wrong in China’s real estate market, a fact which is now becoming widely appreciated as some of China’s biggest property developers default on their debts. The country is in the grip of a house price bubble which has put home ownership out of the reach of many ordinary people, while at the same time suffering from a monumental over-supply of partially completed and unoccupied housing stock which is being held back from the market. With strong vested interests on both sides, policymakers walk an increasingly narrow path to prevent the bubble from either inflating further or bursting abruptly.