中国楼市增长放缓 市场各方忧心忡忡

Wu Xuesong, a professor in this city on the Yangtze, says he doubled his money on an apartment he bought as an investment some years back and is ahead on a second.

常州是长江边上的一座城市。吴雪松（音）是这座城市里的一名教授，他说他作为投资几年前买下的一套公寓的价值已经翻了一番，现在第二套房也升值了。

Buy a third? Forget it.

还要买第三套吗？算了吧。

Mr. Wu slides open a dining-room window and points to the dark shadow of a new apartment complex, where only a handful of lights are on. 'No one lives there,' he says. 'That shatters my confidence' in China's long-thriving real-estate market.

吴雪松打开了餐厅的一扇窗户，用手指着一个黑黢黢的新建住宅小区，那里只有几盏灯亮着。“没人住，”他说，“我的信心破灭了。”他不再相信中国的房地产市场会长盛不衰。

Economists have worried for years that China is setting itself up for a housing-market bust. In big international cities like Beijing and Shanghai, prices continue to rise. But evidence is mounting that in dozens of third- and fourth-tier Chinese cities rarely visited by foreigners, overbuilding is out of control and a major property-market slowdown is now under way.

Tim Franco for The Wall Street Journal图片：中国小城的楼市寒冬数年来，经济学家们一直担心中国的房地产市场终将崩盘。在北京和上海这样的国际化城市，房价还在继续上涨。但在很少有外国人到访的三四线城市，有越来越多的证据表明，过度建设已经失控，房地产市场增速已出现大幅放缓。

The 200 or so Chinese cities with populations ranging from 500,000 to several million account for 70% of the country's residential-property sales. In many of these cities, developers are slashing prices and offering freebies such as kitchen furnishings and parking spaces as they try to work through vast gluts of unsold property. Protests are breaking out among buyers angry that their investments are losing value.

在中国，人口数量在50万到数百万之间的城市的数量约有200个，这些城市的住房销售量占了全国住房销售量的70%。在很多这样的城市，开发商通过大幅降价、赠送厨房装修或停车位等方式试图消化大量的未售出存量房。一些购房者因为自己的投资贬值还开始组织抗议。

Data in some of these smaller cities is scarce. But in 100 cities tracked by Nomura Holdings Inc., 42% of those classified as Tier 3 and Tier 4 saw housing prices decline in March from February. Home construction in such cities is racing well ahead of population growth, says Beijing research firm Gavekal Dragonomics, as developers continue to build new projects without buyers.

这样一些规模较小的城市的相关数据很匮乏。但在野村控股(Nomura Holdings Inc.)追踪的100个城市当中，从2月份到3月份，被归类为三四线的城市中有42%的城市房价下降。北京研究公司龙洲经讯(Gavekal Dragonomics)称，在这些城市中，住房建设速度远远高于人口增长速度，开发商不断开建新项目，但却没人来买。

A dramatic housing collapse such as the U.S. suffered a few years ago isn't thought likely here. Chinese families don't borrow as heavily for home buying as Americans, putting at least 30% down. China doesn't have sketchy mortgages like those that infected the U.S. market at its peak, nor home-equity loans that let owners finance shopping sprees on the value of their homes. Chinese financiers haven't put together arcane mortgage-backed securities such as those that blew up in the U.S.

人们认为，中国不太可能像几年前的美国一样出现住房价格大幅下跌的情形。中国家庭不像美国家庭那样，在买房的时候大量依靠贷款，而是至少要先付30%的首付。中国市场不像美国市场在高峰时期那样充斥着低质量抵押贷款，也没有房屋净值贷款（房屋所有者以自己房屋的净值为抵押获得这种贷款后就可以大举购物）。中国的金融界人士也没有炮制出复杂的抵押贷款支持证券，而这类证券在美国引发了金融危机。

Yet even with market strength holding up in the most prominent cities, the overall value of Chinese housing sold in the first two months of 2014 declined 5% from a year earlier, government statistics show. Private-sector data indicate the decline continued in March.

然而中国政府的统计数字显示，虽然多数主要城市的房地产市场依然强劲，但2014年前两个月中国的整体房屋销售额较上年同期下降5%。私人部门机构发布的数据显示，中国3月份的房屋销售额继续下降。

Price drops might seem a normal market response to oversupply, but when it comes to housing, the phenomenon isn't benign. China increasingly depends on real estate to drive growth.

价格下跌看似是对供应过剩的一种正常市场反应，但对住房市场来说不是一个好现象。中国经济增长对房地产的依赖越来越大。

The construction, sale and outfitting of apartments accounted for 23% of China's gross domestic product in 2013, Moody's Analytics calculates. That is up steeply from 10% in 2006 and is higher than American housing's share of GDP reached during the height of the U.S. housing boom in 2006, Moody's says.

根据Moody's Analytics的计算，2013年，中国公寓住宅的建筑、销售以及装备所涉及的经济活动占当年国内生产总值(GDP)的比重达23%。穆迪(Moody's)称，这一比例远高于2006年的10%，也高于美国住房市场在2006年达到顶峰时所占美国GDP的比重。

The housing troubles add to other headaches for the world's second-largest economy. They come at a time when debt in China is climbing as rapidly as it was in the U.S., Europe, Japan and South Korea before their economies cratered in years past. And China's growth, while still healthy by world standards, has slowed to its weakest since the Asia financial crisis of the late 1990s, amid less-robust demand both at home and abroad for Chinese goods.

除了住房市场，中国经济目前还面临其他领域的问题。中国当前的债务正在以美国、欧洲、日本和韩国经济遭遇经济危机前的速度上升。除此以外，虽然从世界标准来看中国经济的增长情况依然健康，但在国内外对中国产品需求下降的背景下，中国经济增速已降至上世纪九十年代末亚洲金融危机爆发以来的最低水平。

Chinese state television aired a series this month on difficulties faced by home buyers and property developers. An owner in Shenmu County, in the north, said she couldn't afford to pay the mortgage on her apartment but couldn't sell it, either, because so many others were for sale.

中国国家电视台本月播出了一个系列讲述购房者和房地产开发商所面临困境的节目。 西省神木县的一位房主称，她无力偿还抵押贷款，但房子也卖不出去，因为市场上有很多房子在出售。

The finances of some cities and developers are being affected. China's local governments depend on land sales to developers for about 40% of their revenue. Now those sales are bringing in less cash.

一些城市和开发商的财务状况正在受到影响。中国地方政府收入的40%左右来自于土地出让款，但现在靠出售土地获得的收入变少了。

After the city of Fenghua in eastern China cut the price of land, developer Zhejiang Xingrun Real Estate Co. -- which had incurred higher land costs -- found it tough to sell apartments and make payments on its debt, which the city website put at nearly $600 million. Municipal officials say they are trying to stave off a bankruptcy by the developer that could tarnish the city's reputation. Principals of the developer couldn't be reached for comment.

中国东部城市奉化下调了地价以后，之前一直承担着高昂地价的地产商浙江兴润置业投资有限公司(Zhejiang Xingrun Real Estate Co.)发现难以卖出房子、偿付债务。奉化市网站公布，该公司的欠款已经接近6亿美元。奉化官员说，他们正想办法避免兴润置业破产，以免伤及奉化市的声誉。记者无法联系到兴润置业负责人就此置评。

As developers grow short of money, some are using apartments instead of cash to pay their bills to construction companies. Anne Stevenson-Yang, research director at J Capital Research in Beijing, who crisscrosses China checking out property developments, sums up the real-estate market in China's smaller cities 'an incredible house of cards.'

相关报道博客：有关中国楼市供应过剩的问与答博客：营口房地产市场冷过冬天博客：谁会点燃中国经济火药桶？由于开发商们手头缺少资金，一些公司用楼房代替现金支付给建筑公司。美奇金（北京）投资咨询有限公司(J Capital Research)研究总监杨思安(Anne Stevenson-Yang)总结说，中国中小城市的房地产市场是极其不切实际的空中楼阁。她曾经多次往返中国各地，考察房地产的发展状况。

Further weakness could mean trouble for construction companies and appliance and commodity producers. Furniture and appliance sales in China have been slowing along with the weaker pace of apartment sales. Also potentially affected are businesses that use real estate as collateral to get new loans; China's banks rely on property holdings as the main collateral securing loans.

若房地产市场进一步走软，建筑公司、家电企业、大宗商品厂商都可能有麻烦。随着楼市销售速度的下滑，中国的家俱和家电销量也一直在放慢。同样可能受到影响的还有那些利用房地产当做抵押品来获得新贷款的行业。中国的银行业把房地产作为贷款的重要抵押品。

One risk is that consumers who are accustomed to seeing steady gains in their homes' value pull back on spending. This is a danger because an unusually high percentage of Chinese household wealth is tied up in real estate -- about two-thirds, estimates economist Li Gan at Texas A&M University. Americans, at the peak of the U.S. housing boom, had only about half that much of their family wealth in real estate. The figure is high in China partly because of few appealing investment alternatives, with the domestic stock market performing poorly for years and interest on savings deposits at banks fixed at a low rate.

一个风险是，习惯于房产稳步升值的中国消费者会捂紧钱袋。这种状况十分危险，因为中国的家庭财富与房地产挂钩的比例高得离谱，根据美国德克萨斯州农工大学(Texas A&M University)经济学家甘犁的估计，房屋价值占中国家庭财富的比例高达三分之二左右。相比之下，美国在楼市泡沫的巅峰时代，房屋价值占美国家庭财富的比例也不过只有一半左右。中国比例如此之高的原因之一就是缺少其他有吸引力的投资项目，中国股市的低迷已经持续多年，银行存款利率也被定在很低的水平。

Take a drive through China's third- and fourth-tier cities and these issues are all too visible. Many cities are ringed by row after row of empty apartment buildings that reach 20 stories into the sky. At night, they are dark save for blinking red lights on top to warn airplanes.

当你穿梭于中国三、四线城市时，上述问题就显得越发明显。许多城市里都竖起成排成排的20层以上高楼大厦，然而里面空无一人。每到夜间，这些楼房都漆黑一片，只有楼顶上的红灯不停地闪烁，对过往飞机诉说着它们的存在。

Analysts have long taken note of Chinese 'ghost cities' -- sprawling new neighborhoods nearly devoid of inhabitants. These have sometimes been seen as anomalies. But over the past few years, building has proceeded at such a blistering pace that Nicole Wong, a real-estate analyst in Hong Kong for CLSA, figures the pace of construction in third- and fourth-tier cities needs to fall by half between 2013 and 2020 to get supply and demand somewhat back in balance.

分析师们注意中国的“鬼城”已经有很长时间了，“鬼城”中高楼接连拔地而起，但几乎没什么人住进去。有时这些“鬼城”被视为反常现象。然而，过去几年中，楼市仍然以这种白热化的速度突飞猛进。里昂证券（亚洲）(CLSA)驻香港地产分析师Nicole Wong指出，2013-2020年间，三线、四线城市的建房速度需要下降一半，才能使供求关系稍稍回归平衡状态。

In Yingkou, a dusty city of 2.4 million in China's frigid northeast, the only sign of life in one complex of 20-story buildings is a small satellite dish in a first-story window. Zhou Mingqi says he is paid about $290 a month to live there, by owners of three units who want to make sure their properties aren't occupied by squatters or the fixtures stolen.

在中国东北部城市营口市的一个小区，20层楼高的大楼鳞次栉比，然而这里唯一有人居住的迹象就是某个一楼住户窗口有个小型圆盘式卫星天线。周明起（音译）说，有三户业主每月付他290美元（约合人民1,800币元）让他住在这里，他的雇主们希望确保房子不会被非法占住，家俱不会被偷走。这座寒冷、空气也不怎么好的城市里居住着240万人。

The project, called Expo Garden, began in 2010 and was supposed to be finished by 2013. As of last month, only eight of the planned 16 towers had been built. A recent visit found grounds with rutted roads, no sign of workers and not even any billboards advertising sales.

Tim Franco for The Wall Street Journal图为营口的一个房地产项目。这个楼房项目名叫“世博园”(Expo Garden)，动工于2010年，本应在2013年竣工。截至上个月，16栋计划建成的高楼中只建起了八栋。最近记者走访该小区时发现，道路上还有车辙痕迹，也没有工人工作的迹象，甚至没有广告销售的宣传板。

City officials said the builder temporarily suspended construction because of winter. A representative of the developer, Xizang Zangye Group, said construction would resume in the spring. Other local developers said the city was trying to work out a deal to keep the project alive.

该市官员称建筑公司暂停施工是因进入了冬季停工期。小区开发商西藏藏业集团有限公司(Xizang Zangye Group)的一名代表称工地将在春季恢复施工。当地其他开发商称，该市正试图达成一笔交易以确保该项目能运作下去。

In Yingkou, real estate's problems have become the city's as well. Its land-sales revenue has fallen by about 40% in the past three years.

营口市的房地产问题已成为整个城市的问题。过去三年中该市的土地出让收入已减少约40%。

China's private real-estate market dates only to the late 1990s, when the Communist Party started to privatize housing owned by state-owned companies. The market went into overdrive in 2009, as Beijing told banks to start lending heavily to spur growth and make sure China wasn't dragged down by the global financial crisis.

中国的私人房地产市场始自上世纪90年代末，当时中共开始对国有企业拥有的住房进行私有化改造。2009年为确保中国免受全球经济危机拖累，中国政府指示银行大幅放贷刺激增长，致使私人房地产市场加速膨胀。

Around the same time, Beijing tightened restrictions on real-estate purchases in first- and second-tier cities to try to keep prices in those places from skyrocketing too high. (Four cities -- Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen -- are considered first tier, and roughly two dozen second tier.)

与此同时，为防止一、二线城市房产价格涨幅过高，政府收紧了这些地区的购房政策。一线城市是北京、上海、广州和深圳，二线城市有20多座。

The result of the twin policies was that money flowed heavily to medium-size and smaller cities. According to Citigroup, 12 provincial capitals are building an average of nearly 15 'new towns' each, meaning massive high-rise apartment projects on their outskirts.

上述两项政策叠加在一起，使大量资金涌入中小型城市。据花旗集团(Citigroup Inc.)的资料，中国12个省会城市平均建设将近15座“新城”，即在其郊区布设大规模高层住房项目。

One level below the provincial capitals, 133 cities that are the capitals of Chinese prefectures are building a total of 200 of these apartment complexes. Several dozen main county cities are doing the same.

省会城市往下一级，有133个区县首府正建造总共200个住宅小区。还有几十个主要的县城也在做着同样的事情。

Changzhou -- the place where Prof. Wu has made money on past real-estate buys but now is afraid of the market -- is a textile-exporting city of 3.6 million. When stimulus money started flowing in 2009 and 2010, the city decided on a makeover. Aiming to turn into a producer of advanced materials and high-tech goods, it started building a subway and blocked out a section for higher-end housing.

吴雪松购房所在的常州市是一个拥有约360万户籍人口的纺织业出口型城市。2009、2010年大量资金随刺激政策流入常州，该市决定搞一番大改造，立志成为尖端材料及高科技产品制造中心，并在这一目标的指引下修建地铁，并划出一片区域建造高端住房。

But Shanghai is only an hour away by bullet train. People with ambition and money often head to the megacity, crimping housing demand in Changzhou.

但从常州坐高铁到上海只需要一个小时。那些有抱负、也有经济条件的人经常会选择上海这座大城市，从而抑制了常州的住房需求。

In the showroom of a cream-colored development of villas and high-rises in Changzhou, four young Ukrainian women in white fur stoles act as greeters. Ball gowns hang in the closets of the marble-filled model apartments. An outdoor swimming pool is decorated with statues of nymphs.

Tim Franco for The Wall Street Journal常州一个楼盘的路上能见到的行人不多，图为一位园丁。在常州的一个奶油色别墅和高层建筑开发项目的楼盘展厅里，有四位身披白色皮披肩的年轻乌克兰女子担任迎宾员。在这套到处使用大理石的样板房里，壁橱中悬挂着舞会礼服。一个室外游泳池有多个女神雕像作为装饰。

It isn't enough to tempt many to buy. There are plenty of other opulent developments nearby.

可这仍不足以吸引许多买家。而就在这附近还有其他大量的豪华住宅项目。

'If all the developers here stop building right now, there's still enough apartments to last the local and migrant populations for another six to eight years,' says a discouraged sales agent.

一位有些泄气的售楼员说，即便这里所有的开发商马上停止建设，也仍有足够的公寓能满足未来六至八年本地和外来人口的需求。

Faced with weak sales, the complex's developers publicly slashed apartment prices by 40% in late February. City housing authorities called them in to urge them to be more discreet, according to competitors, who say the city didn't want to get a reputation as a bad place to invest. Agile Property Holdings Ltd., a public company that is developing the project with a privately owned partner, declined to comment. City officials didn't respond to requests for comment.

面对低迷的销售业绩，该项目的开发商在2月末公开将房价下调了40%。这些开发商的竞争对手说，常州市相关部门约谈了这些开发商，希望他们能更加谨慎，因为常州不想承担投资环境不佳的名声。与一家非上市公司合作开发该项目的上市公司雅居乐地产控股有限公司(Agile Property Holdings Ltd., , 简称：雅居乐地产)未就此发表评论。常州市相关部门的官员也未回应记者的置评请求。

The developers kept the discounts but stopped advertising them.

目前，该项目的开发商仍在打折，但已停止了有关减价促销的广告宣传。

Other developers felt they had to respond. Nearby, Feilong Road cuts through construction sites filled with unfinished apartment towers that reach as tall as 30 stories. Billboards for one project promise discounts of about 20%. Across the street, another developer offers free parking and about $24,000 off the final price.

其他开发商也感到必须做出应对。在该项目附近，飞龙路两旁的建筑工地到处都是未完工的住宅楼，有的住宅楼达到30层高。一个楼盘承诺打折约20%的广告牌随处可见。街对面，另一家开发商承诺提供免费车位并在最终房价中再折让约2.4万美元（约合人民币15万元）。

At one project, sales manager Susan Yang says her bosses are considering 'stealth price cuts' -- rebates, of maybe 30% -- that would keep the development competitive without undercutting its high-end image.

一个住宅项目的销售经理Susan Yang说，她的老板正打算“隐性降价”，折扣幅度可能达到30%，这样就可以在不破坏楼盘高端形象的同时保持竞争力。

The real-estate oversupply 'gives me a headache,' Ms. Yang says. 'People expect prices will fall.'

Susan Yang说，房地产供应过剩的问题让她头疼。她还说，大家都预计房价会下跌。

On March 21, protesters lined up in front of Phoenix Lake Gardens, a middle-class complex of 20-story apartment towers in northern Changzhou. They put up banners, trashed architectural models in the showroom and demanded refunds from the developer, Wharf (Holdings) Ltd. Wharf had cut prices by as much as 20% after these protesters bought their apartments, making their purchases suddenly worth less.

凤凰湖墅(Phoenix Lake Gardens)是常州北部的一处楼盘，其20层的高层公寓楼针对的是中产阶层。3月21日，业主聚集在这处楼盘前方。他们举着标语，砸了售楼处的楼盘模型，并要求开发商九龙仓集团有限公司(Wharf (Holdings) Ltd., 简称：九龙仓集团)退款。这些业主购房之后，九龙仓集团把房价下调了20%，导致他们购买的房屋瞬间贬值。

David Wan, 25, said he had put $40,000 down on a two-bedroom apartment just a week before Wharf cut the price. 'The salesperson told me that prices wouldn't fall,' he said.

25岁的David Wan说，就在九龙仓降价的一周前，他首付40,000美元买了一套两居室。他说，售楼人员当时告诉他楼盘不会跌价。

Another buyer said she and her husband sold their hometown residence 100 miles away and borrowed from relatives for a 40% down payment here, only to see the price for similar apartments later slashed.

另一位业主徐女士说，她和丈夫卖掉了100英里（约合160公里）外老家的房子并从亲戚手中借了钱才付了40%的首付，现在却只能看着类似户型价格大跌。

The buyer, who would give only her surname, Xu, was especially angry that the developer brought in guards to block the protesters from the showroom. 'We are their earliest home buyers, and this is how they treat us?' she said.

徐女士尤其感到愤怒的是，开发商动用了保安，将抗议的业主挡在了售楼处外。徐女士说自己是他们最早的一批客户，而这就是他们对待老业主的方式？

Wharf defends using the guards, who a spokesman said 'wouldn't touch the customers unless they behaved unreasonably.' The company said it cut prices to clear inventory, which it called 'normal market behavior.'

九龙仓集团为动用保安之举进行了辩护。该公司的一位发言人说，除非客户出现不理智的行为，否则公司不会去碰他们。九龙仓集团说，降价是为了清理库存。该公司称这种做法是“正常的市场行为”。

A few blocks away at another Wharf project, a police officer tried to explain to a demonstrator the new reality of housing in China.

在几个街区外的另一处九龙仓楼盘，一位警官正试图向一名抗议者解释中国房地产业的新现实。

'You bought a private home,' the policeman told the irate protester. 'Prices will go up or down. It's just like investing in the stock market.'

这位警官对生气的抗议者说：“你买了商品房，价格就会涨跌，这跟股市投资一样。”