西游记前10回概括30字:中国楼市：高处不胜寒

In a showroom built to resemble an ancien régime palace, a platoon of salespeople stands idle on the frontline of a looming Chinese property bust.

在一所如同古代王宫的样板间里，一群销售人员闲散地站立那里。此时，中国房地产崩盘的日子隐隐迫近，而他们正处在崩盘的“前线”。

The luxury apartments of Versailles Residentiel de Luxe La Grand Maison, located next to a polluted river in the third-tier coastal city of Wenzhou, have not yet been built but are already on sale for as much as Rmb70,000 ($11,000) a square metre. That is more than double the annual income of the average Wenzhou resident, who would have to save every penny for 350 years to buy a 150 sq m home in this development.

在中国三线沿海城市温州，一条受到污染的河流旁边坐落着“中梁首府”楼盘，这是一个凡尔赛风格的豪华公寓项目，目前尚未开建，但已经在以每平米7万元人民币（合11000美元）的价格对外发售。这一价格是温州普通人年均收入的两倍多，要想在这里买上一套150平方米的房子，即使不吃不喝，他们也要攒上350年的钱。

But even the few who can afford it seem to be having second thoughts. “We have been told to say publicly that everything is going very well and our apartments are selling even though none of the other developments in the city can sell theirs,” says one sales assistant who asks not to be named for fear of losing his job.

不过，即便少数能买得起的人，想法似乎也在改变。一位因担心丢掉工作而要求匿名的销售助理表示，“上头告诉我们，在公开场合要宣称一切都进展顺利，即便温州其他所有项目都卖不动，我们的房子卖得出去。”

Prospective owners have paid deposits on only a dozen or so of the 198 apartments on sale at La Grand Maison. “Prices are dropping fast and everyone is waiting for them to fall further before they think about buying,” says the sales assistant.

“中梁首府”在售的198套房子中，未来房主已交首付款的大约只有十几套。这位销售助理表示，“房价跌得很快，所有人都在等着房价进一步下跌，然后才会考虑出手。”

Across the country, from the big cities of Beijing and Shanghai to the smallest regional towns, countless such complexes have sprung up in recent years as developers and local governments have rushed to capitalise on the frenzy for property. But now, following a decade-long boom and nearly two years of attempts by the central government to cool the overheated sector, the market appears to have turned. Sales volumes have slid and prices are falling as developers try to tempt reluctant buyers with discounts.

两难选择

“China’s property bubble is bursting,” says Andy Xie, an independent economist. From their current elevated levels, “prices may fall by as much as 25 per cent soon and by another similar amount in the following two to three years”.

近年来，随着开发商和地方政府争相利用房地产热牟利，在全国范围内，从北京、上海等大都市到地方小城镇，冒出了数不清的这样的楼盘。但如今，在经历了长达十年的繁荣、以及中央政府将近两年来实施旨在为过热的地产行业降温的举措之后，市场似乎已经转向。销量有所滑坡，价格不断走低，而开发商试图通过打折来吸引拿不定主意的买房人。

The downturn comes just as the market expects a wave of new supply, particularly in smaller cities such as Wenzhou, on China’s prosperous eastern seaboard. The country’s 80,000 property developers own enough land to build nearly 100m apartments. Add this to vacant apartments for sale, according to estimates by Credit Suisse analysts, and China already has the capacity to satisfy housing demand for up to 20 years.

独立经济学家谢国忠(Andy Xie)表示，“中国的房地产泡沫正在破裂。”在当前的高位上，“不久之后，房价的跌幅可能会高达25%，而在随后的两三年还会出现同样幅度的下跌。”

The consequences of a crash would be dire for the wider Chinese economy and for the economies of many other countries that rely on China to fuel their own growth.

此轮市场低迷来临之际，市场正预计将出现一波新的供应，尤其在温州等位于中国富裕的东部沿海地区、规模稍小的城市。中国有8万家房地产开发商，它们拥有的土地足以建造近1亿套住房。据瑞信(Credit Suisse)分析师估算，再加上空置的待售住房，中国已有能力满足长达20年的住房需求。

Last year, property construction accounted for 13 per cent of gross domestic product, and for more than one-quarter of all investment in what is the most investment-dependent economy in history. Property directly accounts for 40 per cent of Chinese steel use; the country itself produces more steel than the next 10 producing countries combined, making it by far the most important buyer of inputs such as iron ore.

房地产行业崩盘，将给更大范围的中国经济领域、以及许多依赖中国推动自身增长的国家经济带来可怕的后果。

Construction in China is also important for a host of other industries, from copper, cement and coal to power generation equipment. The sector “matters to an extraordinary degree for overall Chinese growth, for commodity demand, household expenditures, external trade and underlying heavy industrial profitability,” says Jonathan Anderson of UBS. He calls it “the single most important sector in the entire global economy, in terms of its impact on the rest of the world”.

去年，房地产建设占到国内生产总值(GDP)的13%，而且在总投资中所占的份额超过了四分之一。而当前的中国经济，是有史以来最依赖投资的经济。在全国的钢铁消耗量中，房地产行业直接占到了40%；中国自身的钢铁产量，超过了排名紧随其后的10 个最大钢铁生产国的总和，是迄今为止铁矿石等投入品的最大买家。

The increasing prospect that this sector could come to a screeching halt has serious implications for the global economy at a time of deepening gloom and uncertainty. It is especially important for commodity exporters that have seen their economies boom on the back of Chinese demand for raw materials.

在中国，房地产建设对于很多其它行业也十分重要，从铜、水泥、煤炭到发电设备。瑞银(UBS) 的乔纳森?安德森(Jonathan Anderson)表示，房地产行业“对于中国的总体增长、大宗商品需求、家庭消费、对外贸易乃至基础重工业的利润水平都极其重要。”他认为，就其对世界其他地区的影响而言，（中国）房地产业是全球经济中最重要的一个行业。

“The growth model China has followed for the last few years, which has involved a whole lot of property construction, is running out of steam,” says Mark Williams of Capital Economics. “People have not priced in the coming rebalancing of China away from commodity-intensive development and this has to be bad for economies like Australia, Brazil and Chile.”

中国房地产业急刹车的可能性日益加大，这对于悲观情绪和不确定性正日益加剧的全球经济而言，意义非同一般。中国对于原材料的需求，推动了一些大宗商品出口国的繁荣发展，上述情况对于这些国家来说尤为重要。

Chinese housing prices have soared so high and so fast that the dream of owning an apartment is now out of reach for almost anyone who does not already have one. Growing public dissatisfaction prompted the government early last year to start introducing increasingly tough restrictions, such as higher deposit requirements and outright bans in some cities on the purchase of more than one apartment. But the measures have started to work only in recent months.

“过去几年中国所遵循的增长模式（房地产建设在其中占据了很大份额）正渐行渐远，”凯投宏观 (Capital Economics)的马克?威廉姆斯(Mark Williams)表示。“中国即将摆脱大宗商品密集型发展模式、以实现再平衡，人们尚未在价格中对此进行消化，而这肯定不利于澳大利亚、巴西和智利等经济体。”

According to government figures, which most analysts believe understate the reality, average housing prices more than doubled in the last four years nationwide, while in Beijing and some other regions the price increase was more like 150 per cent. Data are incomplete but analysts say the price of an average apartment in a Chinese city is now about 8-10 times the average annual income nationwide; in cities like Beijing and Shanghai the ratio is closer to 30 times.

中国房价上涨得如此之高、速度如此之快，对于几乎所有还没买房的人来说，拥有一套住房的梦想目前看来已遥不可及。公众的不满不断抬头，促使中国政府从去年初开始实施越来越严苛的限制性政策，比如提高首付比例、有些城市直接禁止购买第二套房。但直到最近几个月，上述措施的效果才开始显现。

Even at the height of the US real estate bubble in 2005, the price-to-income ratio for the whole of America peaked at about 5.1, while cities such as Las Vegas, where the bubble was biggest, saw the ratio reach 5.6, according to Zillow, a real estate information company. Historically, US home prices have tended to be about three times average annual incomes and they are close to that level again now, six years after the bubble burst. In the UK, the ratio peaked at about 5.8 in 2007, according to Halifax, the mortgage lender.

政府统计数据（多数分析师认为其低估了实际水平）显示，在过去四年里，全国平均房屋价格上涨了一倍以上，而北京和其他某些地区的房价涨幅可能高达150%。虽然数据不够完整，但分析师们表示，目前中国城市普通住房的价格约为全国平均家庭年收入的8 至10倍；在北京和上海等城市，房价收入比已接近30倍。

Government policy over the last decade set up perverse incentives that almost seem designed to create a bubble, say Chinese analysts and economists. To start with, all land belongs to the state and local government officials have monopoly power over its supply. In an autocratic, opaque and corrupt system, that gives them enormous authority to decide who gets to use that land and how.

房地产信息公司Zillow的数据显示，即便在美国房地产泡沫达到顶峰的2005年，全美国房价收入比的最高值不过5.1倍左右，而在泡沫最严重的拉斯维加斯等城市，这一比例也不过为5.6倍。在美国的历史上，房价收入比通常为3倍左右，在泡沫破灭6年以后的今天，这个比例又已接近3倍。按揭贷款发放机构哈利法克斯(Halifax)的数据显示，2007年，英国的房价收入比曾达到过5.8倍的最高值。

Faced with chronic revenue shortfalls but forbidden to run deficits, local governments have come to rely on land sales (the “sales” are actually only of land-use rights of up to 70 years) for up to 40 per cent of their income. Analysts say the tax system encourages real estate speculation by wealthy Chinese who have few other investment alternatives and face negative real interest rates if they deposit their money in the bank.

中国的分析师和经济学家表示，过去十年里，政府的政策提供了荒谬的激励，似乎目标就是为了制造泡沫。首先，中国所有的土地都归国家所有，而地方政府的官员垄断了土地的供应。这种专制、晦暗和腐败的制度，使得官员们在决定谁能获得土地使用权、以及如何获得方面，具有非常大的权力。

Apart from pilot projects in Shanghai and in Chongqing to the west of the country, nowhere is an annual property tax levied and the property transaction tax that exists is derisory.

财政收入持续减少，而又不准赤字运行，地方政府逐渐对占到总收入40%的土地出售（所谓“出售”，实际上只是出卖70年的使用权）产生了依赖。分析师表示，中国的税收制度鼓励富人进行房地产投机，他们基本没有什么其他的投资途径，而要是把钱存入银行的话，又必须接受实际上的负利率。

“Right now the high housing price is not due to limited supply – it is because of endemic speculation but the government doesn’t combat speculation because high prices keep GDP growth and revenues high,” says Yi Xianrong, a professor at China Academy of Social Sciences, a government think-tank.

房产税

“China’s real estate bubble is undeniably the biggest in history but our property taxes are lower than Zimbabwe’s; the situation is laughable.”

除了在上海和西部的重庆进行的房产税试点之外，中国尚未在全国范围内征收房产税，而现行的房产交易税受到了人们的嘲讽。

China’s domestic financial system, which sailed through the global financial crisis mostly unscathed, is also vulnerable. When Beijing unleashed an enormous stimulus package in late 2008 to combat the effects of the crisis, much of the money went into construction.

政府智库中国社会科学院(CASS)的教授易宪容表示，“眼下的高房价并不是由于供应量有限造成的——其原因在于投机盛行，但由于高房价会推高GDP增长率和税收，所以政府并未打击投机行为。”

The government says developers and mortgage borrowers account for about 20 per cent of all loans but senior regulatory officials admit that figure probably significantly understates the true exposure of the broader financial system to a downturn in the sector.

“毋庸置疑，中国的房地产泡沫是有史以来最大的泡沫，但我们的房产税比津巴布韦还要低；这种情况真是可笑。”

A banking stress test conducted this year by China’s biggest banks concluded that non-performing loans would tick up only slightly if real estate prices halved. But analysts say the test did not take into account a steep fall in transaction volumes that has already hit much of the country or recognise how falling prices would affect the wider economy when construction inevitably slowed down. Nor did the test try to estimate how falling land sales and prices would affect the value of bank collateral, even though the vast majority of collateral in the system is land or property.

虽然挺过了全球金融危机且基本上毫发未损，但中国国内金融体系仍较为脆弱。2008年下半年，中国出台了庞大的刺激方案，以抵御金融危机的冲击，但大部分资金都进入了建筑领域。

In Wenzhou, often seen as a bellwether for the wider economy, house prices fell 5.2 per cent in October from the same time a year earlier and dropped 4.6 per cent from a month earlier. Prices have not yet fallen as much elsewhere – but transactions across the country were down 11.6 per cent from a year earlier in October, compared with a 7 per cent fall in September, and in the 15 largest cities the drop was 39 per cent.

中国政府表示，开发商和按揭贷款借款人在全部贷款中占到了20%左右，但高层监管官员承认，这个数字可能严重低估了整个金融体系对房地产行业低迷的真实风险敞口。

“The volume of land transactions has also dropped sharply as developers hold off on new projects and will probably continue to weaken as homebuyer sentiment falls further,” says Du Jinsong, China property analyst at Credit Suisse.

今年对中国几大银行进行的压力测试表明，如果房价腰斩，银行业不良贷款只会略有上升。但分析师表示，压力测试没有把目前已对全国很多地区造成冲击的交易量大幅滑坡纳入考虑，也没意识到当房地产建设不可避免地放缓时，房价下跌会对宏观经济产生多大的影响。压力测试也没有尝试去评估土地销售量和价格不断下跌，会对银行手中的抵押品价值产生何种影响——尽管银行业体系所持的抵押品大部分都是土地或房产。

So far, the government has stood firm on its commitment to bring down property prices and has refused to roll back any of its restrictions. This year it unveiled a plan to build 36m subsidised housing units for low-income families in just three years, in the hope that this would make up for the slowdown in commercial housebuilding.

在通常被视作宏观经济风向标的温州，10月份房价同比下跌5.2%，环比下跌4.6%。其他地区的房价下跌得没有这么厉害——但全国10月交易量同比下跌11.6%（9月同比下跌7%），15个最大城市的交易量下跌了39%。

But there is some evidence this plan is already faltering, because of opposition from developers and local governments who are expected to build and pay for units on land they would have otherwise been able to earn big profits from.

瑞士信贷(Credit Suisse)中国房地产业分析师杜劲松表示，“随着开发商推迟新项目开工，土地交易量也大幅下降，而且随着购房人买房意愿进一步减弱，土地交易量可能持续走弱。”

“The subsidised housing is all very poor quality and in terrible locations,” says Cao Jianhai, a real estate expert at the China Academy of Social Sciences. “Local governments are not willing to build affordable housing that can compete with commercial residential developments.”

迄今为止，中国政府一直坚守着降低房价的承诺，拒绝收回任何限制性措施。今年，政府出台了在3年内为低收入家庭建设3600万套保障房的计划，希望籍此弥补商品房建设放缓造成的缺口。

Given the importance of the sector to the overall economy, most analysts believe that if prices drop too far, Beijing will step in to save the market by lifting purchase restrictions and pumping more credit into the economy.

但一些迹象表明，该计划已经受阻，因为开发商和地方政府都对此持反对态度。政府希望他们出资建造保障房，而他们原本可以通过这些建房用地赚取巨额利润。

But others warn that saving the property sector would require another flood of liquidity into the system and would only re-inflate the bubble, leading to higher inflation and an even bigger crash in the future.

“所有的保障房质量都很糟糕，而且位置很偏僻，”社科院房地产专家曹建海表示。“地方政府不愿意建设可能与商品房形成竞争的保障房项目。”

“The government is in a very difficult position,” says Tao Ran, an economics professor at Renmin university in Beijing. “If they relax macro-economic policy the bubble will get worse. But if they don’t relax policy then the bubble will pop and the economy will stall.”

鉴于房地产行业对于总体经济的重要性，大多数分析师认为，如果房价跌得太狠，中国政府就会出手干预，通过取消限购政策和向经济中注入更多贷款的方式来救市。

It is an eventuality that may already be confronting the backers of the faux French development in Wenzhou.

但其他人警告称，要拯救房地产行业，必须向该系统投入大量的流动性，后果只能是再次制造泡沫，这将推高通胀率，并在未来引发更大规模的崩盘。

Housing history: Homeowners in a land that had no word for mortgage

“中国政府目前的处境十分艰难，”北京中国人民大学经济学教授陶然表示。“如果他们放松宏观经济政策，房地产泡沫会变得更加严重。但如果不放松政策，泡沫就会破裂，而经济发展将会陷入停滞。”

In 1996, when Li Fuan was asked by his bosses at China’s central bank to translate an American banking examination manual into Chinese, he stumbled on a problem in chapter 17.

对于温州那个法式风格楼盘项目的支持者而言，这或许是他们眼下已经在面对的结局。

“I couldn’t find a translation for ‘mortgage loan’; we just didn’t have a word for it in any of the dictionaries,” says Mr Li, now a senior official in the China Banking Regulatory Commission.

“按揭”：见微知著

Eventually he tracked down an English-Chinese dictionary printed outside the People’s Republic and used the word he found there – anjie – to describe a personal bank loan for the purpose of buying a house.

1996年，在中国央行工作的李伏安受命将一本美国银行业审核手册翻译成中文，结果他被第17章的一个问题难住了。

“At the time there was no such thing as a mortgage loan in China and some of my superiors thought we should just leave that chapter out of the book altogether,” Mr Li says. “In the end we kept it in but clearly marked it as ‘reference only’.”

目前担任银监会(CBRC)高级官员的李伏安表示，“我找不到‘mortgage loan’（按揭贷款）一词的译名；我们在所有词典上都查不到这个词。”

Before 1998 China did not have a residential real estate market to speak of and there was no need for such exotic financial products. In urban areas, all housing was built and allocated by the state through the ubiquitous “work unit”. In the countryside, peasant farmers built their own homes on land allotted to them by the state or the collective.

最后，他弄到了一本在中国境外印刷的英汉词典，在里面找到了“按揭”这个译法——用来描述个人为了买房而从银行获得的贷款。

The real estate market that now plays such an important part in China’s overall economy was born when the Communist party decided in the late 1990s to begin transferring ownership of the vast majority of housing to individuals. The first home mortgages were extended soon after that.

“当时，中国还没有按揭贷款这种东西，我的一些上级认为，那一章干脆不要翻译了，”李伏安表示。“最后，我们还是把它译成了中文，但清楚地标明‘仅供参考’。”

It is easy to forget that the market is just over a decade old and, apart from a brief dip in the midst of the 2008 financial crisis when transactions dried up, most Chinese have only seen prices double every couple of years and never seen them fall.

1998年之前，中国还没有建立现在所说的住宅地产市场，因而也不需要这种舶来的金融产品。在城市里，房子都是由国家通过无处不在的“工作单位”建造和分配。而在农村地区，农民在国家或集体分配给他们的土地上自己建房。

Many regulators believe that the sector’s short history and a lack of other investment options has led to irrational exuberance. And that in a country where speculative bubbles have been a constant phenomenon since market-based reforms picked up pace in the 1980s.

目前在中国整体经济中扮演如此重要角色的房地产市场，诞生于上世纪90年代末期，当时中共决定开始将大多数住房的产权转移给个人。其后不久，中国就出现了第一笔住房按揭贷款。

人们很容易忘记中国房地产市场只有十多年的历史，而且，除了在2008年金融危机期间成交缩水、房价短暂下跌之外，多数中国人只看到了房价每过几年就翻一番，却没见过房价下跌。

许多监管人士认为，房地产行业短暂的历史，以及人们缺乏其他投资选项，促成了这种非理性繁荣。而且，自上世纪80年代市场改革提速以来，投机泡沫在中国一直经久不衰。