“We named it Spring Legend because it’s close to the river and has a small creek running through it,” explains Liu Xinhu, the chairman of Ding Xiu Zhi Ye (Spring Legend Properties). “It’s extremely beautiful in the spring, too.”

The town was conceived back in 2007, towards the end of a period of rapid development in Beijing that led to an increase in pollution and, correspondingly, a renewed interest among city-dwellers in a serene environment. “Many people wanted to ‘return to the countryside,’” recalls Liu, referring to a Cultural Revolution-era program that sent urban youths to rural China in order to work on farms.

Spring Legend is empty for one simple reason: During the week, hardly anyone lives there. An estimated 80 percent of the town’s homeowners also have apartments in Beijing, and, according to Liu, the general occupancy rate in Spring Legend is only about 60 to 70 percent. Multiple-home ownership among China’s rich is not uncommon; University at Albany professor Youqin Huang has estimated that 15 percent of urban households in the country own two or more houses.

The nature of property ownership has changed greatly in China. Fifteen years ago, state workers (who then comprised much of the population) were assigned basic accommodation. But today, home ownership has become so important that young men struggle to find a girlfriend if they do not own their own home. Buying a place, however, is difficult: Average salaries in Beijing top out at about 4,500 RMB per month (around $750), while the cost of an apartment in the city center is around 43,000 to 52,000 RMB per square meter.

Why has China gone mad for housing? With strict capital controls and a state-controlled stock exchange that is volatile and risky, the tangible reassurance of evergreen property has made it a “fungible commodity,” in the words of Anne Stevenson-Yang, co-founder of Beijing-based equities analysis firm J Capital Research. She says that homes are usually left empty in order to avoid any depreciation in value.

“Renovation costs are very high, so it makes no sense to rent if you are seeking capital appreciation,” she explains via e-mail. “Remember that apartments here are sold bare, without flooring, ceilings, lighting fixtures or wall tiles. They all need to be installed, adding at least 20 percent to the cost [and] people expect to ... custom fit the unit.”

This means that even in successful towns like Spring Legend—where a unit costs an average of 16,000 RMB (about $2,500) per square meter, roughly a third the cost of a typical apartment in central Beijing—the streets and houses remain lifeless. The owners, says Bianca Bosker, author of Original Copies: Architectural Mimicry in Contemporary China, are “dreaming of what they’ll do with the riches they imagine they’ll get when they one day sell them.” The likely answer? Buy more property. However, “Given how many people have hatched the same ‘get rich quick’ real-estate idea, and how many of China’s gated communities stand empty, betting on real estate looks increasingly risky.”