Society & Frontier risk-off · 6–18 months
A what‑if from the future

What if Chinese buyers strike over undelivered pre-sold homes?

A nationwide mortgage-payment strike on undelivered presales severs developer cash flow at the source and forces the state into completion guarantees; the cleanest trade is short copper/AUD and China internet versus the 2022 'baojiao lou' (stop-the-mortgage) wave, which dented iron ore and CSI300 property names before Beijing's delivery-fund backstop. Transmission runs through Australian iron-ore exporters and German capital-goods suppliers. Forward angle: balance-sheet damage now sits with households, not just developers, so the policy response is fiscal completion-funding rather than rate cuts.

17%
our model probability
over 6–18 months
prediction markets — the market's odds
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Anchored to measured history 17% · 90% range 8–27% · 40 dated precedents behind it — a wider range means thinner evidence

Every number ships with its receipt — the odds, the range, the precedents, and a public grade at Reality Check. The statistical machinery that produces it is proprietary.

The butterfly cascade

How this trigger trickles across markets, left → right — the root shock, its first‑order moves, then the ripple effects. Drag any node; tap a market for its real price history.

Resolution timeline — how this probability is moving

Our model's odds (electric blue) over time vs the market's (Polymarket, amber), from the past toward the 6–18 months horizon. Each dot is a real macro event that nudged the probability — green pushed it up, red pushed it down. Tap a dot for the source. Loading the probability audit trail…

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What it would mean

If this plays out, it is a risk-off shock. Millions of Chinese buyers stop paying mortgages on undelivered pre-sold apartments, freezing developer cash flow nationwide. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — China growth ▼ · Credit spreads ▲ · Risk appetite ▼ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.

Methodology. Probability and impact are anchored to history and scored against what actually happens — wins and losses, in public, at Reality Check. Market odds live from Polymarket & Kalshi. By Vikas Singh, Quantitative Strategist. Updated 2026-08-13.