China's 1.4 billion population can't fill the country's millions of empty homes. Here's 3 things that would.

• China has so many excess homes that some estimate you could house three billion people in them.
• A former top official in China mentioned the jaw-dropping figure at an economic forum on Saturday.
• He said the estimate is extreme, but said even China's 1.4 billion people can't fill all of them.

There could be enough vacant homes in China to house up to 3 billion people, a former top China official said.

To put that number in perspective, that's nearly 10 times the population of the US.

And it's also 15 times the population of Western Europe, and 140 times the population of Beijing, the country's capital city.

These jaw-dropping numbers are based on the high ends of experts' estimates about the number of vacant properties in the country.

He Keng, a former deputy head of the National Bureau of Statistics, spoke on Saturday about the struggling housing market in China. When commenting on its vast oversupply of homes, He said some experts have suggested that these empty homes available in China would be enough to accommodate a whopping 3 billion people.

"How many vacant homes are there now?" said He at an economic forum in the city of Dongguan. "The experts are presenting figures that vary greatly. The most extreme believe the number of vacant homes are now enough for 3 billion people. We only have 1.4 billion people."

"That estimate might be a bit much, but 1.4 billion people probably can't live in all of them," He added.

This astronomical figure has been discussed for some years in China, and is typically calculated based on official reports that the average home size in urban areas is 39 square meters, or around 420 square feet.

Pundits then factor in the number of people in every Chinese household, which is 2.62 persons, per China's Seventh National Census held in 2021.

But China has yet to publish an official estimate on the total floor space of its empty homes.

Government statistics from August say the total area of all unsold homes in China is around 7 billion square feet, per Reuters.

The outlet estimated that this translates to around 7.2 million homes, based on an average home size of around 90 square feet, or 968 square feet.

These statistics also do not count the number of sold but uncompleted homes, and don't factor in properties owned by people who bought houses as investments but don't live in them, Reuters noted.

Still, He's statement and acknowledgment of a gigantic, problematic home surplus diverges from the central government's stance.

China's central bank said in March that the country's real estate sector is bouncing back, and that "recovery of market confidence has accelerated."

China's housing market has, in recent years, been revealed to be facing a massive excess supply of homes. Land development by the real estate sector, a longtime pillar of China's rapid economic growth, snowballed into a building frenzy that's resulted in entire neighborhoods of high-rise residential complexes without people to live in them.

Some neighborhoods are filled with homes that have already been sold, but can't be completed due to construction companies running out of cash.

The second-biggest real-estate developer there, Evergrande, became the world's most indebted company in 2021 and defaulted on loans, sparking fears of an unstoppable contagion that could bankrupt even businesses in the US.

Meanwhile, the biggest real estate giant in China, Country Garden, narrowly avoided default earlier this month. It had failed to pay interest for two US bonds in August, but managed to fulfill the transaction within a 30-day grace period.

The Strategic Research Institute, Chinese Academy of personnel Management, of which He is an advisor to, did not immediately respond to a request for comment to He.