中国房地产市场现复苏迹象

China’s Housing Market Shows Signs of Hope

中国房地产市场现复苏迹象

HONG KONG — For the last year, real estate in China has been a gloomy place for investors.

香港——过去一年里，投资者一直对中国房地产感到悲观。

Housing prices have plunged. Well-known developers suffered. At least one major property company even defaulted on its debt — a rarity in the country’s closely controlled economy.

住宅价格大跌，知名开发商陷入困境，至少一家大型房地产公司甚至出现了债务违约。中国在经济上管控严格，债务违约相当罕见。

But there may be small signs of stabilization, data showed on Monday. In China’s biggest cities — metropolises like Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen — housing prices ticked slightly upward.

但本周一的数据显示，房地产市场可能出现了少许企稳迹象。在中国最大的城市——北京，上海和深圳这样的大都市圈——住宅价格略有上涨。

The tentative rebound in some cities’ housing prices suggests that recent steps by policy makers are helping engineer at least a slight turnaround in the market. Last week, the central bank cut interest rates for the third time since November; it had already removed several restrictions on some home purchases.

一些城市住宅价格出现试探性反弹，这表明，政策制定者最近采取的一些措施发挥了作用，至少让房地产市场出现了复苏苗头。上周，央行下调了利率，这已是自去年11月以来的第三次;限购住宅的一些规定也已取消。

“April’s home sales growth returned to positive territory, the first time since December 2013, following a slew of easing measures introduced to support the weak housing market,” analysts in Hong Kong at Bank of America Merrill Lynch wrote on Monday in a research note. “We expect home sales to remain robust in the coming months as the recent monetary and property easing measures continue to provide support.”

“今年4月的住宅销售增长恢复到了正值，这是自2013年12月的第一次。此前政府推出了一系列放宽举措，为疲软的住宅市场提供了支撑，”美银美林 (Bank of America Merrill Lynch)的几名驻港分析师本周一在研究报告中写道。“我们预计，在未来几个月内，随着最近出台的货币和购房宽松措施继续发挥支撑作用，住宅销售将保持旺盛势头。”

The data on Monday painted a divided picture of China’s housing market. New-home prices fell 6.3 percent in April compared with a year earlier, their biggest monthly drop in a decade, according to figures compiled by Wind Information, a financial data service focused on China.

从本周一的数据来看，中国房地产市场的走向难定。中国金融数据服务“Wind资讯”统计的数据显示，与上年同期相比，4月份新房价格下降了6.3%，创十年来最大单月跌幅。

But in month-to-month terms, which tend to better capture the most recent trends, prices showed signs of stabilizing, falling only 0.1 percent in April from March. In the biggest cities, prices increased, rising at their fastest pace since late 2013.

但是逐月比较往往能够更好地捕捉最新趋势，从这个角度来看，房价比较稳定，4月仅比3月份下降了0.1个百分点。几个最大的中国城市房价出现上涨，涨速也达到了2013年底以来的最高水平。

Plunging housing prices in China were partly to blame last month when Kaisa Group became the first Chinese developer to default on its overseas debt, throwing a chill over the market.

中国房价大跌的部分原因在于，佳兆业集团上个月成为中国第一家海外债务违约的开发商，给市场注入了一股寒意。

Even with tentative indications of a turnaround, investors say a genuine recovery in Chinese housing may still be some way off.

即使出现了初步复苏迹象，投资者表示，中国房地产真正的复苏可能仍然有待时日。

“The issue that really began to scare us is the extent of the inventory overhang,” Russell Platt, the chief executive of Forum Partners, a private equity firm based in London that invests in Chinese real estate, said of China’s glut of unsold homes. Forum was an early investor in Kaisa, but cashed out well before the default.

“真正令我们担心的，是库存过剩的程度，”私募股权投资公司Forum Partners的首席执行官拉塞尔·普拉特(Russell Platt)谈到中国待售房屋供大于求的状况时说。该公司总部设在伦敦，对中国房地产市场进行了投资，并曾在佳兆业发展的早期投资过该公司，但在其违约前早已获利出清。

Forum has been slowing its investments into China’s property market. “You have to know when to get in, but more important, you’ve really got to know when to get out,” Mr. Platt said.

Forum Partners已经放慢了对中国房地产市场的投资。“你必须知道什么时候入场，但更重要的是，你真的得知道什么时候离场，”普拉特说。

China’s residential property market is a major indicator of the country’s economic health. By some economists’ estimates, housing and related industries account for more than 20 percent of China’s gross domestic product. Partly as a result of the sluggish property market, China’s economy grew at its slowest pace in six years in the first quarter, as the Communist Party tried to reduce China’s reliance on credit-propelled investment and to bolster consumer demand.

中国的住宅房地产市场是该国经济健康的重要指标。据一些经济学家估计，住宅及相关产业在中国国内生产总值(GDP)中占比逾20%。今年第一季度中国经济增速降至六年来的最低水平，部分原因就是房地产市场的低迷，其他原因包括中共试图减轻经济对信贷推动的投资的依赖，并提升消费需求。

If it continues, the improvement in housing prices in recent months could provide help to some of the hardest-hit parts of the economy, lifting businesses as diverse as developers, construction companies, steel and cement plants, property brokerages and banks.

如果房价在近几个月里的回升能够继续下去，可能就会为一些遭受重击的经济部门提供助力，推动开发商、建筑公司、钢铁，水泥、房地产经纪公司和银行等多个领域的增长。

One of the biggest challenges to a recovery in China’s residential property market remains huge swaths of unsold homes, but the situation varies greatly across the country. In a working paper published last month, economists at the International Monetary Fund found that overbuilding in China’s so-called Tier 1 cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen had created an inventory equal to less than 12 months’ worth of sales.

中国住宅市场复苏的最大挑战仍然是房屋存量巨大，但不同地方的情况大不相同。上个月，国际货币基金组织(International Monetary Fund)的经济学家发表了一份初步报告称，在北京、上海、广州和深圳等一线城市，过度建设导致房屋存量超过11个月的销售量。

That level is fairly manageable, especially considering that those cities continue to attract migrants from the countryside. But in Tier 2 cities, unsold inventories rose to nearly 1.5 years’ worth of sales. China’s least-developed cities, those in Tier 3 and Tier 4, had an alarmingly high stock of unsold homes equal to nearly three years’ worth of sales.

这种水平远未超出可控范围，尤其是考虑到这些城市将继续吸引来自农村的移民。但在二线城市，新房存量接近于1.5年的销售量。而在中国最不发达的三、四线城市，待售房屋存量高得惊人，相当于近三年的销售量。

Despite the overbuilding, China’s heavily indebted developers have only recently begun to curtail borrowing for new projects and land purchases. Last year, net debt levels for the country’s biggest developers rose 29 percent from 2013, nearly twice as fast as their revenue growth, according to calculations by Moody’s Investors Service.

尽管过度建设达到如此程度，负债累累的中国开发商直到最近才开始缩减与开发新项目和购买土地相关的贷款。据穆迪投资者服务公司(Moody's Investors Service)测算，去年，中国最大型的开发商的净债务水平较2013年上升了29%，比它们的营收增长几乎快了一倍。

Such a precarious financial position could lead more developers to follow Kaisa into default. But other builders appear to have caught a break. Companies like Evergrande Real Estate Group have been promised huge credit lines from China’s biggest state-owned banks. And, following in the footsteps of China’s stockbrokers, property companies have found a new source of funding in the continuing stock market rally that can help them reduce their reliance on bank debt and bond sales.

这种不稳定的财务状况，可能会导致更多开发商步上佳兆业的后尘，出现债务违约。但是其他公司似乎好运临头。恒大地产等公司已经获得承诺，可以从中国最大的国有银行获得巨大的信贷额度。而且，房地产公司追随中国股票经纪商的脚步，在持续上涨的股市中找到了新的资金来源，可以帮助它们减少对银行债务和债券销售的依赖。

Last week, China Resources Land raised 10 billion Hong Kong dollars, or $1.3 billion, by selling new shares. Also last week, Yuzhou Properties, a smaller developer, said it would raise 800 million Hong Kong dollars in a share sale.

上周，华润置地公司通过出售新股筹集了100亿港元。禹洲地产是一家较小的开发商，它也在上周表示，将通过售股筹集8亿港元。