中国楼市难以驾驭 Property: Housing at risk of going out of control

If the Chinese economy were to suffer a nasty accident over the next few years, it is likely that housing will be at the bottom of it.

如果说中国经济在未来几年会遇到严重问题，那么其根源可能会是房地产市场。

Given the underlying demand for housing, it might seem surprising even to entertain the prospect of a bubble developing. Every year, between 10m and 15m rural people migrate to cities – a pattern that is likely to be repeated for the next decade at least.

考虑到潜在的住房需求，泡沫的说法有点像是天方夜谭。中国每年有大约1000万到1500万农村人口进入城市，这种趋势至少在未来十年可能都会持续下去。

On top of that, there is huge potential demand from the existing urban population. Although some 70 per cent of city residents own their homes, a large chunk of those people still live in the former state-owned flats they were allowed to buy cheaply from the late 1990s. Many are eager to upgrade to one of the newer tower blocks springing up across the country.

除此之外，现有的城市人口也有巨大的潜在需求。尽管大约70%的城市居民都有自己的住房，但他们当中的很大一部分仍住在上世纪90年代末获准廉价购买的原国有房产里。许多居民都渴望改善居住环境，搬到全国各地拔地而起的新楼房中。

Yet the Chinese housing market is at constant risk of spinning out of control. Apart from the negative real rates of interest they receive on bank deposits, ordinary Chinese have few other options available for investing their savings, other than a volatile stock market, because of the restrictions on taking money out of the country. That makes the perceived security of buying property a constant attraction.

但中国楼市却时常有失控的风险。由于中国限制将资金带出国外，普通中国人除了动荡的股市以外，没有多少可投资其储蓄的渠道，银行存款的实际利率也是负值。而购房被认为是安全投资，从而产生了持久的吸引力。

For many economists, preventing this bias towards real estate investment from becoming a bubble is one of the main challenges for guaranteeing economic stability. “If China can prevent formation of an asset bubble, there is a good chance of sustaining economic growth in the future,” says Fan Gang, a former member of the central bank’s monetary policy committee and head of the National Economic Research Institute.

在许多经济学家看来，防止对房地产的这种青睐演变为泡沫，是保障经济稳定的主要挑战之一。前央行货币政策委员会委员、国民经济研究所(National Economic Research Institute)所长樊纲表示：“如果中国能预防资产泡沫的形成，未来就有很大的机会维持经济增长。”

The added complication for the government is that house prices have become a sensitive political issue. While homeowners do not want to see the price of their main asset fall sharply, there is a generation of young professionals who see buying their own flat as a vital part of their life plan but who feel priced out of the market.

让政府面临的情况变得更为复杂的是，房价已经变成了一个敏感的政治议题。虽然房屋拥有者不希望看到自己的主要资产价格大幅下跌，但将买房视为人生规划重要组成部分的一代年轻中国专业人士，却感到价格超出了他们的承受能力。

By some calculations, houses in Beijing and Shanghai are 15 times the average annual salary, double the ratio usually expected in a country of Chinese income levels. One of the most popular television programmes over the past year has been Snail House, a soap opera which showed the lengths that young Chinese will go to try to pay for their mortgages, with one character becoming the mistress of a government official in order to keep up with the payments. Indeed, the programme was so sensitive, it was taken off the air.

根据一些计算，北京和上海的房价是平均年薪的15倍，而对于一个类似于中国收入水平的国家来说，通常的情况应该是7.5倍。过去一年最流行的一部电视剧是《蜗居》，这部肥皂剧展示了中国年轻人为还房贷而会付出怎样的努力，剧中一个角色为了能保持还款而成了一位政府官员的情妇。事实上，这个节目颇为敏感，因此遭到禁播。

In recent years, the authorities have tried to use short-term administrative policies to try to control rising housing prices. In 2007 and again this year, measures were introduced to make speculative house-buying less attractive – this year the policies have included higher down payments for mortgages on second and third homes and increasing the mortgage rates for second homes.

最近几年，有关政府部门不断尝试利用短期行政政策来抑制高涨的房价。2007年和今年，中国出台了相关措施，以降低投机性购房的吸引力。今年的措施包括提高第二套及以上住房的房贷首付款，以及提高第二套房的按揭利率。

However, there are limitations to using such administrative tools to control price increases. These types of policies have to implemented on a city-by-city basis and the risk is that once the initial campaign dies down, local governments – which often have close ties with the real estate industry – begin to relax their grip.

然而，使用此类行政工具控制价格增长具有局限性。此类政策势必是由各个城市具体实施的，因此一旦最初的管控势头慢慢淡去，通常与房地产行业关系密切的地方政府就会放松控制。

In recent weeks, there have been signs that this could be happening in some parts of the country. In Hangzhou, a prosperous city near Shanghai, a series of luxury apartment buildings have sold out in a matter of days – a sign that mortgages in some places might be getting easier to secure.

最近一段时间，有迹象显示，这种现象可能正在中国的一些地方发生。在上海附近的繁荣城市杭州，一系列的豪华住宅楼几天之内就宣告售罄——这个迹象说明，在某些地方或许更容易获得按揭贷款。

As a result, policymakers are developing two longer-term strategies to bring more stability to the market.

因此，政策制定者正在研究两项长期策略，以期让市场变得更稳定。

The first is a sharp increase in the construction of public housing. One of the ironies of the Chinese market is that although there is huge demand at the bottom end from migrants to cities, much of the construction is at the top-end, where the margins have tended to be larger.

第一项是大幅增加公共住房建设。中国房地产市场一个颇具反讽意味的现象是，虽然移居到城市的人们有着巨大的底层需求，但住房建设大多面向利润率往往更高的高端需求。

Beijing has promised this year that local authorities will build 5.8m apartments for low-income families, many of which will be rented out. The government hopes to achieve twin goals with the public housing push: neutralise some of the political furore about the rising cost of housing, while providing a fillip to property construction, which will be hit by measures to limit speculative buying.

中国政府今年承诺，地方政府将为低收入家庭修建580万套住房，其中多数将用于出租。政府希望通过推动公共住房建设同时达到两个目标：一是中和住房成本上涨引发的部分政治矛盾，二是推动将会受到限制投机性购房措施冲击的房地产建设。

The other issue under discussion is the introduction of a property tax. One of the reasons that speculating on property is so attractive is that there is no annual tax that property-owners need to pay. As a result, the costs of buying an apartment and keeping it empty in hope that the market will rise are relatively low.

正在讨论中的另一个议题是引入房产税。房地产投机吸引力如此之大的原因之一，是业主不需每年缴税，因此购买房屋并空置等待房价上涨的成本相对较低。

Introducing a property tax has other attractions, as it could help to create a more solid financial base for local governments. That would make them less dependent on continually selling plots of land to balance their budgets, which is sometimes land taken away from farmers.

引入房产税还有其他吸引人的地方，比如可以帮助地方政府创造更稳固的财政基础。这可以减少地方政府对通过不断卖地来平衡预算的依赖，而有时，出售的土地是从农民手中征得的。

However, introducing a property tax is politically tricky – in part because the government fears a backlash from homeowners if it caused prices to fall sharply. As a result, analysts predict the tax will be implemented very gradually, starting in one or two larger cities and, perhaps, focusing initially on second properties.

不过，引入房产税在政治上十分棘手——部分原因在于，政府害怕，如果房产税造成房价急剧下跌，可能会引发业主的强烈反弹。因此，分析人士预计，房产税会逐步推行，先从一两个较大的城市开始，并且将最初的征税目标放在第二套住房上。

Beijing is hoping that these measures will help restrain the animal spirits in the housing market, without prompting a damaging bust.

中国政府希望，这些措施将有助于抑制房地产市场中的冲动，而又不至于造成后果严重的崩盘。