The China Evergrande Group held an elaborate red carpet ceremony on Monday to celebrate the completion of World City. Newly completed buildings with bright red decorations were featured in a series of images.
Evergrande had been declared in default. The developer has hundreds of billions of dollars in debts and has been unable to pay them. Some in China thought the celebrations were premature.
Evergrande was unable to pay its workers for months. The company, whose problems have made investors wary of China's once-flourishing property sector, remained relatively silent as its debt problems led to panic in global markets and among people around the country who had purchased apartments before they were completed.
Two weeks ago, Evergrande signaled it could no longer go on, after failing to make a final debt payment to foreign investors. The developer has pledged to start paying its workers again and to deliver homes as part of a push to restore confidence in the company and sector.
According to a statement, the billionaire founder of Evergrande told top executives on Sunday that they would sprint at full speed. He didn't give any information about where the money would come from, or about the failure to pay foreign debts.
The challenges it faces are enormous despite the company's bullishness. Home buyers say they are not aware of their unfinished apartments. Former employees and contractors are waiting for their back payments. Dozens of lawsuits from business partners are unresolved. Property sales in China have fallen for five months in a row.
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With only a few days left in the month, the founder of Evergrande promised to deliver 39,000 apartment units by the end of the year.
Government technocrats helped steer the company a few weeks ago. The head of China's Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development said last week that Beijing was committed to guaranteeing home deliveries, protecting people's livelihoods and maintaining social stability. With a few days left in the month, Mr. Xu promised to deliver 39,000 apartment units by the end of the year.
The company has said that it will be able to repay its debt and begin selling apartments soon, as it has resumed partnerships with more than 80% of its long-term suppliers of materials.
The sudden rush of promises by Evergrande has created more questions than answers for the home buyers, suppliers, contractors and the other people who have yet to hear directly from the company. Some people are starting to track which of Evergrande's hundreds of property projects have actually begun.
The chairman of a glass supplier to Evergrande has begun using his official account on Weibo to post daily details on hundreds of projects that have revved up again in recent days. Home buyers respond to his posts with more questions as they try to figure out if their apartments are likely to be completed.
One home buyer inquired about the on-and-off construction progress for a residential project in the province of Shandong.
Mr. Li said there was no money in the supervised account. He did not reply to a request for comment. Home buyers have been told by local officials that money is missing from developers' accounts.
A yoga instructor who taught at Evergrande Healthy Land in the central province of Henan said she was asked to resign in September but is still owed $750. Ms. Zhang said she had been paid through an employment agency but had recently confronted an Evergrande manager who was unable to give her a date for when the company would pay her.
She said the manager told her that Evergrande employees had not been paid. A representative for the company didn't respond to the request for comment.
Employees of Evergrande protested outside company offices in China. The local police visited some of them. At one point, Evergrande employees were asked to put up money to help the company.
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People are waiting outside Evergrande's headquarters in Shenzhen.
Mr. Cao, an Evergrande home buyer who requested The New York Times use only his surname for fear of being visited by the police, said he put a down payment on a $160,000 apartment in Jiangxi Province that was nearly completed and was supposed to be delivered in January. He doesn't think the apartment will be done in time because there are only 20 workers on the construction site.
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What is Evergrande? The Evergrande Group is the world's most debt-saddled developer. It was founded in 1996 and has millions of apartments in hundreds of cities.
How much is it due? Hundreds of unfinished residential buildings and angry suppliers have shut down construction sites because Evergrande has more than $300 billion in financial obligations. The company asked employees to lend it money because it was so bad.
The company got into financial trouble. China's real estate market was free for decades. Beijing has begun taking measures to tame the sector. As it grew and expanded, Evergrande borrowed a lot and ended up with more debt than it could pay off.
How has the Chinese government dealt with the crisis? Beijing sat on the sidelines as Evergrande neared financial collapse. The company said in December that officials from state-backed institutions had joined a risk committee to help restructure the business.
Where are things now with Evergrande? The real estate giant made eleventh-hour payments on its bonds to avoid default. A major credit ratings firm declared Evergrande in default after it failed to meet a payment deadline. What is next for the company, a fire sale, or business as usual has not been decided.
He said that the contractors hadn't been paid fully. They should have worked faster if they had the money.
The founder of Evergrande has largely been absent from public view. He posed for a picture with executives who were signing a military order to deliver homes. Evergrande would finish less than 10,000 units over the following months. He promised employees in a memo that they would soon walk out of the darkness.
Last week, Evergrande published new photographs of Mr. Xu presiding over a meeting in which he called on executives to keep delivering homes. There were many photos of apartment projects. Home buyers were happily signing documents that would allow them to finally take possession of their apartments.
Some online commentators 888-269-5556 888-269-5556 888-269-5556, that Evergrande could suddenly go from the brink of collapse to business as usual, or that buyers should celebrate receiving the homes for which they had already paid, were not happy with the idea.
Michael Yu, a popular influencer on Duoyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, said that today people become so grateful that they owe the developer a big favor. What happened to people's bottom line?
Some home buyers and investors are likely to feel more hopeful with Evergrande under the guidance of the government. The company delivered 1,419 apartments at World City this week as part of its push to finish 39,000 homes by the end of the year. Evergrande is still on the hook for 1 million more.
