Buttonwood
Where the hurt is
Why house prices in global cities are falling
梧桐
傷在何處
國際大都市房價爲何下跌
CENTRE POINT, a tower that looms over central London, was empty for so long in the 1970s that it lent its name to a homelessness charity. Recently it was converted from offices to flats. Half are yet to find buyers. So the developer has taken them off the market pending a clearing of the political fog over Britain. Its boss complained to Estates Gazette, a trade paper, of bids that were “detached from reality”. One-bedroom flats were on sale for £1.8m ($2.4m).
上世紀70年代，矗立在倫敦市中心的中心點大廈（Centre Point）因爲長期空置，連名字都借給了一間遊民慈善機構。近些年，它從寫字樓改成了公寓樓，其中一半公寓還未賣出。于是開發商將它們從市場中撤出，等待英國政治的迷霧消散。它的老板向一家行業報紙《地産公報》（Estates Gazette）抱怨買家出價“與現實脫節”。一居室公寓售價爲180萬英鎊（240萬美元）。
Even flats with less hefty price tags have been hard to shift lately. Property prices in London are falling. Sellers are waiting for better prices. It is tempting to put all the blame on Brexit, but that would ignore the broader picture. House prices in big global cities increasingly move together. What happens in London has a growing influence on what happens in New York, Toronto and Sydney—and vice versa. And trouble is brewing in some of these other markets, too.
即便是價格不那麽高昂的公寓近來也難以出手。倫敦的房價正在下跌。賣家待價而沽。把所有責任都推到英國脫歐頭上的確很省事，但這會讓人看不到更普遍的趨勢。國際大都市的房價走勢越來越趨于一致。倫敦的情況對紐約、多倫多和悉尼的影響越來越大，反之亦然。而在其他一些市場中，麻煩也在醞釀。
Property used to be thought of as an inflation hedge. But in recent years it has become a substitute for low-yielding Treasury bonds—a safe asset in which the globally mobile can store their wealth. After years of rapid price rises, houses in the most favoured markets are overvalued. Rising bond yields, tighter mortgage credit and shifting politics are now combining to push prices down.
房地産曾被認爲是通貨膨脹的對沖手段。但近些年，由于國債這種可供行走全球的人儲存財富的安全資産的收益率走低，房産成了國債投資的替代品。在經過多年的房價快速上漲之後，在那些最受青睐的市場上房價都已被高估。目前債券收益率上升、抵押貸款收緊，以及政治格局的變化正在合力拖低房價。
The value of homes in the posher parts of global cities move in sync because they have become a distinct asset class. Private-equity firms and investment trusts, not just individuals, own them. Prices in such cities are explained more by global factors, such as the yields on the safest government bonds, than by local conditions. This global influence is particularly marked in financial centres that are open to capital flows, such as London, New York, Toronto and Sydney. It has extended into smaller European cities, such as Amsterdam.
國際大都市的高檔住宅區房價漲跌同步，因爲它們已成爲一種獨特的資産類別。不僅是個人，私募股權公司和投資信托公司也持有住房。影響這些城市房價的更多是全球因素，比如最安全的政府債券的收益率，而不是本地環境。這種全球影響力在倫敦、紐約、多倫多和悉尼等對資本流動開放的金融中心尤爲明顯，並且已經擴展到像阿姆斯特丹這樣的小一些的歐洲城市。
Demand from emerging markets such as China and Russia has been growing. Buyers are willing to pay steeply to secure a safe place for their savings—or a bolthole for themselves. Cristian Badarinza of the National University of Singapore and Tarun Ramadorai of Imperial College London have shown that political trouble in Russia, parts of Africa and the Middle East predicts a rise in the price of prime London property. The same sort of influence is also found in less ritzy neighbourhoods, says Mr Ramadorai. For instance, property prices in Hounslow and Southall, which have lots of settlers from South Asia, picked up in the early 2000s, a period of political tensions in India.
來自中國和俄羅斯等新興市場的需求一直在增長。買家願意支付高價來爲自己的儲蓄找一個避風港——或爲自己留一處避難所。新加坡國立大學的克裏斯蒂安·巴達林紮（Cristian Badarinza）和倫敦帝國理工學院的塔倫·拉馬多利（Tarun Ramadorai）已經指出，俄羅斯、非洲部分地區和中東地區的政治問題預示著倫敦高檔房地産的價格將上漲。拉馬多利表示，在不那麽豪華的社區也能看到這類影響。例如，擁有大量南亞移民的亨斯洛（Hounslow）和紹索爾（Southall）的房價在本世紀初出現回升，當時印度正處于政治緊張時期。
Foreign demand has spillovers. If an oligarch buys a house, it drives up the prices of smaller properties nearby. A paper by Dragana Cvijanovic of the University of North Carolina and Christophe Spaenjers of HEC Paris finds similar effects in Paris’s property market. Foreign buyers, mostly from China, have been a force behind booms in the big cities of Australia and Canada.
外來需求有溢出效應。如果一個大老板來買了套房子，就會推高附近較小房産的價格。北卡羅萊納大學的德拉加娜·茨維亞諾維奇（Dragana Cvijanovic）和巴黎高等商學院的克利斯朵夫·斯巴尼亞斯（Christophe Spaenjers）在一篇論文中指出，巴黎的房地産市場也存在類似的情況。大多來自中國的外國買家推動了澳大利亞和加拿大的大城市的樓市繁榮。
But the tide has changed. Global cities look awfully dear. The rental yield on investment homes worldwide fell below 5% for the first time ever in 2016, according to MSCI IPD, a financial-information firm. House prices relative to incomes are well above their long-run average in Amsterdam, Auckland, London, Paris, Sydney and Toronto (see chart).
但潮流已經改變。國際大都市的房價看起來貴得驚人。金融信息公司MSCI IPD的數據顯示，2016年全球投資房的租金收益率首次跌破5%。在阿姆斯特丹、奧克蘭、倫敦、巴黎、悉尼和多倫多，房價收入比遠高于長期平均水平（見圖表）。
And prices are falling in some of the dearer cities, in response to a variety of forces. The yield on Treasury bonds, the world’s benchmark safe asset, is rising. A tightening of credit standards on mortgages in Australia and Canada has squeezed housing in cities there. Uncertainty about Brexit has made London a place of political risk rather than a refuge from it. Meanwhile, capital is moving less freely. Governments are charier of Russian money. China is shaking down its super-rich for taxes and is zealous in its policing of capital outflows.
而在各種力量的影響下，某些房價較高的城市正經曆價格的回落。作爲全球安全資産基准的國債收益率正在上升。澳大利亞和加拿大正在收緊抵押貸款的信貸標准，擠壓了當地城市的房産市場。英國脫歐的不確定性讓倫敦成爲了一個政治風險的集中地而非避難所。與此同時，資本流動也不像以前那麽自由。各國政府對來自俄羅斯的資金更加謹慎。中國正在加強對超級富豪征稅，而且熱衷于管制資本外流。
A corollary of stronger links between global cities is a kind of “waterbed” effect. For instance, when taxes were levied on foreign homebuyers in Vancouver in 2016, the market cooled, but Toronto took off. There are buyers who will compare prices in, say, Mayfair in London and Park Avenue, New York. They look for value. But it is vanishingly scarce. The market is turning. Those who bought at the peak, or are hoping to sell, will slowly adjust to a new reality.
國際大都市之間的聯系愈加緊密，其必然結果就是一種“水床”效應。例如，2016年溫哥華對外國購房者征稅，當地房産市場開始降溫，但多倫多的房價卻飙升了。有些買家會比較多個地區的房價，如倫敦的梅菲爾區（Mayfair）和紐約的派克大道（Park Avenue）。他們想要找到劃算的房産。但這已極難實現。市場正在發生變化。那些在高峰期買進或希望賣出的人要慢慢適應新的現實。