House prices in China have already started dropping, but why? Xi's plan not rate hikes.

The PBOC in October '19 estimated that 70% of Chinese household wealth is tied up in real estate of one kind or another. China's economy had been heavily investment oriented with a lot focused on residential dwellings. Xi Jinping's "common prosperity" is therefore a direct threat to the financial wellbeing of the vast majority of urban households (thus enforcing draconian "pandemic" policies to "gently" remind them they don't get a say) with fallout already being felt far beyond Chinese home markets and China itself.