(Yicai Global) Nov. 12 -- ‘Ghost buildings’ lie scattered across Shijiazhuang, the capital of China’s northern Hebei province, with some having been left incomplete for more than a decade.

Over 40 unfinished building projects are dotted around the city, some 300 kilometers south of Beijing. For a variety of reasons, developers were unable to complete them.

Such buildings are not uncommon in the past 20 years of booming property prices, but they are not a widespread phenomenon in most major Chinese cities. But they are an acute problem in Shijiazhuang that has troubled the local government, businesses and homebuyers who made down payments.

Work on Prominent Mansion, a downtown townhouse cluster, stopped almost a decade ago after the developer was suspected of selling one home to two buyers during the pre-sales period and then vanished with the down payments.

Xiangyun International has been hailed by netizens as Hebei’s “most beautiful” unfinished building. The developer planned a large complex of residential and commercial properties with an amusement park. The firm went bust in 2017.

Roundabout Haoting has stood unfinished for over 10 years. The people who bought homes in the project are still renting apartments elsewhere.

Xihu Yiping, a big complex of planned offices, residences, retail and F&B outlets, is overgrown with grass and weeds almost a decade after construction work began. The developer was suspected of unlicensed development and sales.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Peter Thomas