Economy distorted by property sector

The pains of China's faltering property market are spreading across the broader national economy. With property prices and transaction volumes on the skids, developers are running low on cash, local governments are watching fiscal incomes taper off and commercial banks are issuing less housing loans.

Of course, over the past decade it's been developers, local authorities and banks who have primarily contributed to - and profited from - China's overheated housing market. Ordinary people, meanwhile, have seen their livelihoods and living conditions thrown into disarray by run-away real estate costs. The country's investment structure has also been distorted as capital holders piled their money into the real estate sector.

The property market's disproportionately large position within China's economy means that any minor bump in the road could have disastrous consequences across the country's financial and industrial chain.

Consequences also loom for the country's social wealth. By the end of the last century, rising home values created a wealth effect that buoyed countless families into middle-class status. But over a decade later, China is now confronting a widening wealth gap between those who own a home and those who don't.