SHANGHAI, China’s financial centre, does not make it easy on outsiders wishing to buy homes.Non-residents who are single are banned from buying property. The married are welcome butonly so long as they have paid local taxes for two years and make nearly a third of thepurchase in cash. Shenyang, China’s biggest northern city, is far more welcoming. Anyone canbuy a home there. All to little effect: housing prices in Shanghai, five times more expensive thanthose in Shenyang, have risen by 20% over the past year; those in the northern city haveedged down.
上海是中國的金融中心，對于外來打工者來說，想在這里安家置業(yè)絕對不是一件容易的事。單身的非長駐居民不允許在這里買房。已婚人士購房是歡迎的，但前提是已經(jīng)向地方政府上繳了兩年稅款并現(xiàn)金支付至少三分之一的購房款。中國北方的城市沈陽遠比上�！盁崆楹每汀薄Ｈ魏稳硕伎梢栽谏蜿栙I房。但仍然無濟于事，上海的房價比沈陽貴5倍，并且在去年一年里增長了20%，與此同時，北方城市房價卻小幅下降。
This bifurcation is a worry for the government, which wants to spur growth without inflatingbubbles. A divergence in housing prices between wealthy cities and the hinterland is a familiarproblem in other countries—just look at London and Lincolnshire, say, or New York andNebraska. But the divisions are starker in China. In its most prosperous cities, already giddyprices continue to shoot up, while unsold flats pile up in markets where valuations were low tobegin with. Moreover, construction has long been one of the economy’s main engines,accounting for as much as a quarter of GDP growth until recently. This makes it especiallyimportant that the government get the balance right. Doing so is proving hard.
政府希望既能刺激經(jīng)濟又不引發(fā)通脹，因此對兩極分化的現(xiàn)象感到擔(dān)憂。一線城市和欠發(fā)達地區(qū)的房價分化現(xiàn)象在其他國家也不少見：例如倫敦和林肯郡、紐約和內(nèi)布拉斯加州。然而這種分化在中國表現(xiàn)得更明顯。一邊是在中國最繁華的城市里持續(xù)飆漲的房價，另一邊則是本來市值就低的房子待售成堆。而且建筑行業(yè)一直是國家經(jīng)濟增長的主要引擎之一，直到最近仍占GDP增長的四分之一。因此，對于政府來說，保持平衡至關(guān)重要卻也困難重重。
Over the past half-year, the government has unveiled a series of measures to support thehousing market that specifically exclude China’s five hottest markets (Beijing, Guangzhou,Sanya, Shanghai and Shenzhen). People buying homes need only make a 20% down-paymentto obtain a mortgage, except in the five conurbations, where they must put down 30%. Bythe same token, in most of the country transaction taxes have been cut by as much as two-thirds for people buying second homes; in the five outliers they have been left unchanged. InShenzhen, a southern tech hub that is the frothiest market, with prices up by 53% in the pastyear alone, local officials have vowed to crack down on speculators and expand the supply ofaffordable housing.
在過去半年里，政府出臺了一系列政策來穩(wěn)住大部分城市的房地產(chǎn)市場(北京、廣州、三亞、上海和深圳這五個房地產(chǎn)最火的城市除外)。購房者只需支付20%的首付款即可獲得房屋貸款(這五個城市則需要付30%);二手房購房者所要上繳的交易印花稅也降低了三分之二(這五個城市保持不變)。深圳作為南方的科技中心，房價在去年一年上漲53%，成為泡沫最嚴重的城市，當(dāng)?shù)卣l(fā)誓要嚴控房產(chǎn)投機并加大可負擔(dān)住房的供應(yīng)。
The results of this two-tier system have beenmeagre so far. The frenzy in the biggest cities stemsfrom the central bank’s steady loosening ofmonetary policy over the past 18 months. Althoughwarranted from an economic perspective, it wasinevitable that low interest rates would drive assetprices higher. Initially, much of the credit pumpedout by banks ended up in the stockmarket, butfollowing its crash last summer, property beckoned as one of the few decent investmentoptions in China (capital controls, which have been further tightened recently, make it hard forChinese savers to invest their money abroad).
這種分而治之的房地產(chǎn)政策目前看來收效甚微。大城市房價飆漲的根源是央行在過去18月來逐步放寬的貨幣政策。盡管該政策的目的是為了拉動經(jīng)濟，但低利率不可避免地會拉升固定資產(chǎn)價格。一開始，銀行釋放的大部分信貸涌向了股市，然而經(jīng)歷了去年夏天的股災(zāi)之后，房地產(chǎn)成為了投資者們?yōu)閿?shù)不多的上佳選擇(資本管制最近也逐步收緊，這讓中國人很難把他們的存款投資到境外市場)。
For speculators looking at property, the excess supply in smaller cities was all too evident, sothey turned instead to the megalopolises. Du Jinsong of Credit Suisse describes it as a form of group think. “Everybody—investors, developers, policymakers and bankers—thinks that first-tiercities are safe,” he says.
對于把目光投向房地產(chǎn)的投機客而言，小城市的房屋供給過剩太明顯，所以他們轉(zhuǎn)而看向大城市。瑞士信貸的杜勁松把這種情況描述為集體迷思：“每個人——投資者、開發(fā)商、政策制定者和銀行家——都認為投資一線城市更加安全�！�
Even as the government tries to restrain the excesses, however, it does not want to snuff outthe rally in the big cities altogether, for they tend to influence sentiment elsewhere. There aresigns that this is beginning to happen. Housing prices started rising month on month in thebiggest cities a year ago. In midsized cities (in China, those with populations of 5m-10m), priceshave been rising for the past four months. In smaller cities (mere hamlets of 1m-5m), gainshave been evident only for the past two months (see chart).
即使政府希望抑制這種過量投資，但并不打算把涌進大城市的各路資金全部趕走，以防他們對其他敏感領(lǐng)域施加影響。這種趨勢已經(jīng)可見端倪。大城市的房價在過去的一整年中連月增長;中等城市(人口在五百萬到一千萬之間)的房價在過去四個月持續(xù)增長;而小城市(人口在一百萬到五百萬之間)的房價只在過去兩個月有明顯增長。
If this upturn lasts, some investors reckon it will spur construction. Commodities used to buildapartment blocks, such as iron (girders) and copper (wires), have recovered slightly from theirrecent swoon, partly in the hope that China’s property market is also stirring (see article).Indeed, a series of mini-cycles in the Chinese housing sector over the past decade followed thissort of pattern: rising housing sales led to new building starts, which in turn pushedcommodity prices higher.
如果情況能持續(xù)好轉(zhuǎn)，一些投資者認為它將會刺激建筑行業(yè)。如鐵梁、銅線這類用于建造公寓的材料商品，都已漸漸從最近的低迷期得以復(fù)蘇。部分以期中國房地產(chǎn)市場也將處于動蕩。的確，中國房地產(chǎn)行業(yè)過去十年一系列小周期活動都遵循這種模式：房產(chǎn)銷售上漲帶動新建筑的開發(fā)，新建筑的開發(fā)反過來推動材料價格上升。
Figures from the China Index Academy, a data provider, show that the stock of unsold homeshas decreased recently, from nearly 30 months’ worth of sales early last year to 15 now. “Ahousing market with rising volume and prices clearly does not support the view that, on amacro level, China’s housing market is oversupplied,” notes Liang Hong of China InternationalCapital Corp, an investment bank.
根據(jù)中國指數(shù)研究院提供的一官方數(shù)據(jù)顯示，未售房屋的存量在最近得以減少，從去年初近30個月的銷售量，減少至目前的15個月�！斑@個存量和價格并升的房地產(chǎn)市場顯然并不能從支持宏觀上中國房地產(chǎn)市場產(chǎn)能過量的觀點，”中國國際金融公司(投行)梁宏如是說道。
But there is a further vast increment of supply on the verge of coming to market, becausedevelopers slowed the pace of construction in recent years and in some cases halted italtogether.
但是大量的供房即將上市，因為開發(fā)商近年放緩了大興土木的節(jié)奏，一些建筑都已全部停工。
There were 4.7 billion square metres of housingunder construction but not yet available for sale atthe end of last year, up by 25% from the end of2011; 452 million square metres of housing were onsale, nearly three times as much as at the end of2011. Some provinces and cities are drafting plans toconvert unsold homes into subsidised housing forpoorer residents. Xi Jinping, China’s president, hassaid that reducing property inventory is a “battle of annihilation” that must be won torevitalise the economy. Revived demand for new construction, in short, is a long way off.
去年年末，有47億平方米的在建樓房都沒有開放銷售，從2011年年末算起增長了25%;4.52億平方米的房屋都在出售，數(shù)量將近是2011年年末的3倍。一些省份和城市在起草計劃，打算將未售房屋變成窮困居民的補助房。習(xí)主席提到，減少房地產(chǎn)庫存是一場必須要打贏的經(jīng)濟復(fù)興的“殲滅戰(zhàn)”。要復(fù)興對建筑行業(yè)的蓬勃需求還有一段很長的路要走。
The exception is sure to be China’s biggest cities, where there clearly is an imbalance betweensupply and demand. Shenzhen and Shanghai, in particular, are popular with the young andthe highly educated, just the kinds of people that push up housing prices. They are two ofChina’s best-run cities, offering good transport links, good jobs and, by Chinese standards,good air. Unsold housing inventories cover just about five months of demand at the currentpace of sales, indicating that more construction is needed.
中國的大城市顯然是個例外，那里房地產(chǎn)供應(yīng)與需求顯然不平衡。尤其是深圳與上海，頗受具有高等學(xué)歷的年輕人歡迎，他們也正是那些推動房價上漲的人。作為中國兩大發(fā)展的城市，上海和深圳能提供便利的交通，較好的工作環(huán)境，還有依據(jù)中國標(biāo)準(zhǔn)所謂的優(yōu)質(zhì)空氣。以當(dāng)前房地產(chǎn)銷售速率，未出售的樓房庫存僅能滿足五個月的需求。這表明我們需要更多地建造樓房。
