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Housing 住房问题 Why grumble? 抱怨何来？ A silver lining to the housing cloud 不幸中之大幸
JUST how bad is China’s housing bubble? One important measure—the most important for those trying to get a foot on the property ladder—is affordability. Many believe that Chinese housing prices have soared well beyond the reach of ordinary people. There is some truth to that. But a closer look at the data reveals a more complex picture. The Economist Intelligence Unit, our sister company, created a city-level index to track the relation between housing prices and incomes across China. Two points stand out. 中国房地泡沫到底有多严重？用一项重要的指标可以衡量——尤其对那些渴望在地产市场拥有一席之地的人们来说，这项重要的指标就是购买力。许多人认为，中国的房价已超出普通人的购买能力。这点千真万确，但如果细看相关数据，就会发现事情远不止那么简单。经济学人智库，作为我们的兄弟单位，为比较中国不同规模城市的房价和收入，制作了一张图表。有两个要点呼之欲出。 First, the country’s biggest cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, with populations of more than 10m, are in a class of their own in terms of unaffordability (see chart; for full results see our interactive here). Homes are markedly cheaper in almost all slightly smaller cities, even though they have millions of residents. The price of a 100-square-metre house is on average 14-fold higher than annual household incomes in mega-cities. For cities with populations of less than 10m, the price to income ratio is eight. It thus makes sense for China’s cities to tailor their housing policies to their own needs; some must focus on building more subsidised homes, while others need to attract new residents to occupy their many homes now standing empty. 首先，中国最大的城市，如北京、上海等，人口超过1,000万，其购买力在同一水平；而在小城市（有些小城市人口已过百万），房价则相当便宜。超级大城市里，100平米的房价平均是家庭年收入总和的14倍；人口数低于1,000万的城市里，这个比例是8。因此，有些中国城市根据情况，量身定制住房政策，一些城市着重建造保障房、安置房，也有一些城市因不少开发出的房屋空置，正在努力吸引外地人口来此定居。 Second, regardless of city size, housing has become more affordable over the past four years throughout China. At the peak, in April 2010, house prices on average were nearly 12 times household incomes; that has dropped to less than nine times today. Prices are higher than in many developing countries, but they are not wildly divergent. 其次，无论城市规模大小，在过去四年内，房价对于中国人来说，已经变得相对能够接受一些。在2010年四月时，中国的房价创历史新高，房价基本是年收入的12倍，今天这个数字已经降到了9。在其他许多发展中国家，房价也很高，但不会如中国房价一样悬殊。 The apparent improvement in affordability does not tally with the perception of many Chinese. But the official price data used in constructing this index show that people are adjusting to high inner-city prices by buying homes that are ever farther from urban centres. That may not be especially painful: suburbs are increasingly well-connected by roads and railways. 然而，大多中国人并不认为购买力得到了显著的提高。官方房价数据显示，人们不再关注城市中心地带的高价房屋，而是将目光转向远离城市中心的内城。这种做法或许是不得已而为之，但城郊交通日益发达，公路铁路加深了城郊与城市紧密的联系，所以这种做法不失为一个不错的选择。 The bigger concern, especially in smaller cities, is that China suffers from an oversupply of housing. So many homes have been built that prices in such cities are now declining quickly relative to incomes. That is desirable. But a big, sudden rise in affordability could pose considerable risks to the financial system, which is heavily exposed to loans made to the property sector. So far, at least, China has yet to experience the pain of a property-market crash. 中国房地产市场过剩，在小城市尤为明显，这是最令人担忧的问题。在许多小城市里，由于过度建造房屋，许多房屋的价格随着收入已迅速下跌，这是许多人希望看见的。然而，购买力的迅速大幅上升或许会给金融系统带来一系列风险，尤其对于地产行业里用于购房的贷款，或许对金融系统造成巨大的冲击。至少，目前中国还未经历房地产市场的剧变。 |
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