As property prices rocketed toward the heady peak of Sydney's real-estate boom in 2017, the bulldozers came to Epping.
Eucalypt-lined streets of red-brick bungalows in the middle-class suburb were snapped up at hefty premiums by developers, razed, and quickly remade as apartment blocks.
Many units were sold off-the-plan - where buyers enter into contracts and pay deposits before construction starts - to Chinese investors drawn by the location's reputation as a Chinese community hub and its highly-regarded schools.
But prices are now in freefall, and the suburb is being refashioned once more, this time into the epicentre of a bust.
As buyers disappear and miss settlement payments, some projects are sinking under their debts.
