《蜗居》大热背后的冷思考
来源：英国《金融时报》 作者：驻华首席记者 杰夫•代尔 2010年01月08日
目前在中国讨论最为热烈的电视节目，是一部名为《蜗居》(Snail House)的电视剧，内容涉及性、腐败和政治阴谋。然而，它实际上这是一部有关房价的电视剧。
在一个疑为上海的城市里，剧中的一个角色成为了一个共产党官员的情妇，为的是让他帮忙买一套公寓，而另一对年轻的夫妇拼命奋斗，也未能成功筹集到买房的首付款。这部连续剧触及了中国社会的痛处，因此审查部门去年年底对其下达了禁播令，但这并没有阻止该剧在网上引发热议。
《蜗居》的成功折射出当前中国民意的一个重要特征。当世界其它很多地区都对中国经济的迅速复苏感到敬畏之际，这部电视剧剖析了中国许多城市的民众面对直线飙升的房价日益高涨的不安情绪。中国城市居民对于成为“房奴”怨声冲天。
对于房价的焦虑引发了投资者的担心，担心中国去年动力超强的信贷繁荣正给房地产泡沫添柴加火，而这个泡沫终将破灭，并导致经济脱轨。
的确，目前中国房地产市场的确有一些迪拜的影子。在距离北京两小时车程的天津市，一家房地产开发公司正开工兴建一个大规模豪华别墅项目，其建筑群以全球五大洲命名，构成了世界地图的形状。如果这听起来还不够耳熟，那么项目规划中的七星级酒店和室内滑雪场，最能体现出迪拜风格。（1月6号天津的气温为零下11 摄氏度，而迪拜为23摄氏度，这倒是可以作为兴建滑雪场的理由。）
许多令人担忧的数据为坊间传闻提供了支持。莱坊(Knight Frank)的统计显示，在截至去年11月的一年里，上海新房均价上涨了68%，北京上涨66%，深圳上涨51%。本周《中国日报》(China Daily)表示，以房价收入比衡量，中国如今已经成为全球生活成本最高的国家。
尽管如此，任何预言中国房地产存在问题的人，都需要考虑一些支撑市场、相当有力的基本面因素。近年来，收入的增速大体上高于房价增速，而且房主们的负债水平较低。
接下来还有城市化因素。根据国务院的数据，未来20年内，最多将有4亿人可能迁往城市——顺便说一句，这相当于322个迪拜的人口。乐观主义者表示，面对这样的潜在需求，人们很难太过担心房地产市场崩盘。
但有一个因素，就连看涨房地产的人士也会因此停下来思考一下：中国许多城市高端住宅的空置面积。清华大学经济学家帕特里克•霍瓦内克 (Patrick Chovanec) 将这些空置楼盘称之为“鬼屋”。他在一个新楼盘购买了一套公寓，该楼盘已售罄，但多数空置。在上海浦东地区的夜晚，可以看到整栋整栋的楼盘几乎没有一盏灯亮着。有人估计，住宅空置面积已达5.87亿平方米。
霍瓦内克表示，原因是中国人把房屋视为“价值储存手段，就像黄金一样”。在一个封闭的经济体，由于几乎没有其它投资选择，中国人把大量储蓄投入了房地产。正是这种行为在推高很多城市的房价，如果不加以控制，可能会制造一个危险的泡沫。
中国不仅需要实现经济再平衡，也需要对房地产市场进行调整，改变一些鼓励措施，这样投资才能进入人们迫切需要的低收入住宅，而非空置的高端公寓。但这是一个政治难题。
明显的解决方案是开征物业税。中国人在买房时会一次性缴纳契税，但之后就无需缴纳任何税费。如果每年征税的话，就降低了保留空置房产的合理性。开发商从高端住宅中获得的丰厚利润空间就会受到挤压，迫使他们建造其它类型的房产。
实际上，中国许多经济学家将物业税视为杀手锏，以改变中国日益不平等的经济中一些最糟糕的领域。这可能会为地方政府创造一个可持续的收入来源，它们通常依赖于出售从农民手中得到的土地获得一次性收入。这也可能会为户籍制度改革融资提供一种方法，在目前的户籍制度下，城市的农民工无法享受健康和教育服务。
然而，尽管中国多年来一直在讨论物业税，但一直没有实施。如今，中国一些最有权势的既得利益者，是房地产开发商与地方政府官员组成的严密网络，双方都受益于目前不透明的现状；《蜗居》对其中一些关系中的腐败现象进行了大量探讨。物业税还将改变被管理者与政府之间的关系，中国政府可能会发现这一改变令人担忧：更多的中产阶层在抱怨的是地方政府如何花费税收，而非拥有房产。
此外，还有一个实施的问题。物业税或许有利于避免未来出现更大的泡沫，但如果把握不好，可能会造成市场暴跌。在房市上涨的推动下，中国政府实现了快速的经济复苏，但今年要想保持这种反弹势头，中国面临着一些微妙的政治选择。
译者/何黎
本文作者是英国《金融时报》驻华首席记者
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001030684
The soap opera of China’s housing boom
Financial Times
By Geoff Dyer 2010-01-08
The most talked-about television programme in China at the moment is a soap opera called Snail House, which offers the viewer sex, corruption and political intrigue. Really, however, it is all about house prices.
One character becomes the mistress of a party official to help her buy a flat, while another young couple struggles unsuccessfully to raise the deposit for an apartment in a city that looks suspiciously like Shanghai. The series struck such a raw nerve that the censors took it off the air at the end of last year, although that has not stopped it becoming a big online hit.
The success of Snail House says something important about the popular mood in China today. While much of the rest of the world is in awe of China’s rapid recovery, the programme tapped into the mounting wave of unease about the sky-rocketing cost of apartments in many cities. Urban Chinese complain loudly about becoming “mortgage slaves”.
The house-price angst is fuelling fears among investors that China’s super-charged lending boom last year is stoking a real estate bubble that will eventually burst and derail the economy.
Indeed, there is a whiff of Dubai about the Chinese property market at the moment. In Tianjin, a city two hours from Beijing, a developer is starting work on a vast project of luxury villas, built in clusters named after continents, which form the shape of a world map. If that does not sound familiar, nothing screams Dubai more than the 7-star hotel and indoor ski slope that are also part of the plans. (In defence of the skiing, it was -11°C in Tianjin yesterday, compared to Dubai’s 23°C.)
There are plenty of alarming statistics to back up the anecdotes. According to Knight Frank, average prices for new homes in the year to November rose by 68 per cent in Shanghai, 66 per cent in Beijing and 51 per cent in Shenzhen. The China Daily noted this week that in terms of house prices as a proportion of incomes, China is now the most expensive place in the world.
That said, anyone predicting problems in Chinese property needs to consider some pretty strong fundamentals underpinning the market. In recent years, incomes have mostly risen faster than house prices, and homeowner debt levels are low.
Then there is urbanisation. According to the State Council, as many as 400m people could move to cities over the next two decades – which works out, by the way, at 322 Dubais. It is hard to lose too much sleep, say the optimists, about a collapse in a property market facing that sort of potential demand.
But there is one factor that makes even property bulls pause for thought: the acres of empty flats in high-end compounds in many Chinese cities. Patrick Chovanec, an economist at Tsinghua University in Beijing, who bought an apartment in a new complex that was sold out but mostly empty, calls them “ghost-condos”. In the Pudong area of Shanghai in the evening there are whole blocks with almost no lights on. By one estimate, 587m sq m of apartments have been left empty by owners.
The reason, says Mr Chovanec, is that Chinese treat flats as “stores of value, like gold”. With few other investment options in a closed economy, they put a big chunk of savings into real estate. And it is this behaviour that is driving up house prices in plenty of cities and, if unchecked, could create a nasty bubble.
China needs not only to rebalance its economy, it also needs to rebalance its housing market, changing the incentives so that the investment goes into much-needed low-income housing and not to high-end flats that are unused. But this is where the politics get difficult.
The obvious solution is a property tax. Chinese pay a one-off transaction tax when they buy a house but nothing afterwards. With an annual tax, it would make less sense to keep empty properties. The juicy margins that developers get from top-end flats would be squeezed, forcing them to be build other types of property.
Indeed, plenty of Chinese economists see a property tax as a silver bullet to alter some of worst aspects of China’s increasingly unequal economy. It could create a sustainable source of income for local governments, which often rely on the one-off revenues from selling land they have taken from farmers. And it could provide a way to finance reforms of the household registration system, which denies health and education services to migrant workers in cities.
But while China has talked about a property tax for years, it has never been implemented. Some of the most powerful vested interests in China today are the tight webs of property developers and local government officials who both benefit from the current opaque set-up; Snail House had a lot to say about the corruption in some of these connections. A property tax would also shift the relationship between governed and government in a way that Beijing might find alarming – the only thing more middle-class than owning property is complaining about how local authorities spend tax revenues.
There is also the problem of implementation. A property tax might help to avoid a bigger bubble down the road, but if badly handled it could cause the market to slump. Helped by buoyant housing, Beijing has engineered a rapid economic recovery, but to sustain the rebound this year it faces some delicate political choices.
The writer is the FT’s China bureau chief
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001030684/en