成本增加，供应减少，美国年轻人买房难

今年春季，艾莉森·欧文决定在美国得克萨斯州首府奥斯汀买一套房，给养的两条狗寻个安身之所，也想离刚找的政府工作近一点。

房产中介警告28岁的欧文，入门级的房子竞争激烈，他真没开玩笑。

欧文想住进很受欢迎的威尔斯布兰奇社区，看中了一套1200平方英尺（111.48平方米）的房子。房子标售19.8万美元，但她最后要出价21.5万美元，才能赢过至少九位竞购的买家。

“最后花销比预想中多得多。”欧文这么说。

美国各地都类似。因为贷款利率低，就业市场又在好转，一批首套房的潜在买家涌现，却赶上入门级房子供不应求。

美国房地产经纪商协会（NAR）数据显示，2015年6月至2016年6月，全美售价不超过25万美元的存量房减少了12%以上。

入门级房屋之所以短缺，主要因为劳动力、土地和建筑许可的成本提高，导致建筑公司将重心放在利润更高的高端住房上。此外，机构投资者也在一些热门地区大量买入低价住房用来出租。

平价房供应减少是当前经济里诸多趋势之一。多种趋势共同作用下，年轻的劳动者和家庭要想积累财富比父辈难得多。

华盛顿智库Economic Policy Institute称，2000年至2014年，负债的普通美国大学毕业生实际平均时薪持续下滑。而美国凯斯-席勒全国房价指数通胀调节后同期上涨逾25%。

付得起首付的年轻劳动者被迫加入了竞价战，争夺越来越少的房源。其中一些人因为决定买房而预算紧张，花费往往能赶上过去购买改善性住房。

路透社分析在线房地产网站Trulia整理数据发现，过去四年，本地楼市售价最低的三分之一房源——入门级房产市场供应量减少了34%。

许多城市的房产市场供需更为紧张。2012年以来，盐湖城的入门级房源数平均下降38%，圣迭戈平均剧减71.5%，马萨诸塞州剑桥和俄勒冈州波特兰的降幅均超过60%。

租房市场新现实

据美国劳工部统计局数据，2006年至2014年，独户家庭住宅的住租数量增长约34%，主要因为次贷危机。

危机期间房产市场崩溃，机构投资者蜂拥购买市价低于实际价值且业主失去赎回权的房屋，改为出租房。

据房产数据供应商ATTOM Data Solutions统计，在30万美元以下市售住房之中，将近五分之一都由企业或公司掌握。但投资者的购房速度在2013年达到巅峰后已经放缓。

在美国，至少五家公开交易的房地产投资信托基金（REIT）仅持有单户家庭租房。2012年开始交易的American Homes 4 Rent是目前最大的独户家庭住宅公开交易REIT，投资遍布20多个州的将近3.8万处房产。该基金净值去年上涨逾40%。

公开文件显示，该REIT由美国最大仓储经营商Public Storage的创始人B.韦恩·休斯成立，大股东包括基金管理巨头Vanguard Group和摩根大通资产管理公司。

2016年7月，私募股权基金黑石集团宣布为美国最大房产出租公司Invitation Homes旗下私募基金公开募股。该基金的投资组合包括4.5万户住宅，成立于2012年，迄今黑石已投入87亿美元。

财力雄厚的大型投资者通常以现金付清房款，所以他们比普通个人买家更容易抢购得手。

25岁的人力资源经理劳拉·梅迪纳最近参加了加州祖纳谷一个入门级社区盛大的开盘。她自称六个月来在竞购战中屡败屡战，只为给儿子和自己一个家。

“很多投资者在买房。”梅迪纳说道。

NAR的经济学家劳伦斯·尹（音译）认为，房租涨价后，很多房东有望获得稳定的收入，许多个人业主也希望摇身一变当上“包租公/包租婆”。

房东越来越多，租房也成为有吸引力的市场。据美国统计局的通胀调节后数据，和上世纪80年代的同龄人相比，如今18岁到34岁的美国年轻国民年收入少了2000美元，年轻人背负的学生贷款债务达到创纪录水平。

纽约联储统计，2015年第四季度，美国未偿还学生贷款共计1.2万亿美元，在各类个人债务中规模仅次于房贷。以当前美元汇率折算，十年来学生贷款的月均还款额增长了50%，达到351美元。

以上两个因素共同导致年轻买家推迟进入房市。今年6月NAR发布的一项调查显示，有学生贷款债务的非房主之中，71%的受访者称将推迟买房。

开工放缓

由于个人和机构房主攫取了低端房的房租，买家需求并不旺盛，新开工项目增长缓慢。

以截至6月的数据推测，今年开工的独户住宅仅有77.8万户，远低于上世纪90年代和21世纪初过百万户的年均水平。

其中部分原因在于，新屋开工仍未摆脱经济衰退期的低迷。不少建筑商退出市场，工人也改行另找工作。

美国全国住房营建商协会经济学家罗伯·迪亚兹称，衰退造成的劳动力短缺仍然存在，这是建筑活动放缓的原因之一，土地成本提高和房产项目融资吃紧是另外两个原因。

美国林肯土地政策研究院发现，过去四年住宅用地的平均价猛增约79%，已达2007年和2008年巅峰期的水平。

此外，包括兴建许可、劳动力和材料在内，兴建新屋的成本已经占普通独户住宅总成本的61.8%，2007年这一比例为48.1%。

总部设在亚特兰大的美国最大住房建筑商PulteGroup表示，迫于市场形势，该司只能修建售价更高的住房。

首套房的买家目前在PulteGroup的客户中占32%，五年前还有40%。该司已经调整业务重心，重新着力开发均价较高的35万美元左右的首套房，将目标锁定为更富有的城市买家。

PulteGroup的首席财务官鲍勃·欧沙那希在今年5月的投资者大会上说：“现在跑去远郊买豪宅买车位的人没那么多，市场不大。”

他说，假如房产市场再来一轮衰退，“远郊豪宅会最先崩盘。”（财富中文网）

译者：Pessy

审校：夏林

Seeking a yard for her two dogs and proximity to her new government job, Alison Owen set out to buy a home this spring in the hot market of Austin, Texas.

Owen’s real estate agent warned the 28-year-old that she would face stiff competition in the market for entry-level homes—and he wasn’t kidding.

Owen had to offer $215,000 for a property listed at $198,000 to fend off at least nine other bidders for the 1,200-square-foot home in the sought-after neighborhood of Wells Branch.

“I definitely spent a lot more than I thought I was going to spend,” Owen said.

Similar scenarios are playing out across the United States. Low interest rates and an improving job market have created a wave of prospective first-time home buyers, but they’re being stymied by a dearth of available starter homes.

Nationwide, the inventory of homes costing $250,000 or less fell more than 12% between June 2015 and June 2016, according to the National Association of Realtors.

The shortage stems from higher labor, land and building permit costs that have caused construction companies to focus on higher-end homes that bring more profit. In addition, institutional investors are snapping up affordable homes by the thousands in select markets nationwide and converting them to rentals.

The shrinking supply of affordable homes is one economic trend among many that is conspiring against younger workers and families in building wealth as their parents once did.

Real average hourly wages of often debt-laden college graduates fell between 2000 and 2014, according to the Economic Policy Institute, while the Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index jumped more than 25%, adjusted for inflation, over the same period.

Younger workers who can afford to save for a down payment, meanwhile, are forced into bidding wars for the dwindling number of houses they can afford. Some decide instead to strain their budgets for a home that would have been traditionally considered a trade-up.

Over the past four years, the number of entry-level homes for sale – defined as those priced in the lower third of a local market—has fallen by 34%, according to a Reuters analysis of data compiled by listings firm Trulia.

The market is even tighter in many cities. In Salt Lake City the average number of starter homes on the market has fallen by 83% since 2012, and in San Diego by 71.5%. Cambridge, Mass. and Portland Ore. have both seen drops of more than 60%.

The New Renting Reality

Between 2006 and 2014, the number of single-family homes occupied by renters jumped by about 34%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, a shift that had its roots in the subprime mortgage crisis.

After the housing crash, institutional investors rushed to buy undervalued and foreclosed homes and convert them to rentals.

Corporations or companies now own nearly one fifth of all homes priced under $300,000 that are not occupied by their owners, according to property data firm ATTOM Data Solutions, though investor purchases have slowed since peaking in 2013.

At least five publicly traded real estate investment trusts in the U.S. exclusively own single-family rental homes. American Homes 4 Rent—which began trading in 2012 and is currently the largest publicly-traded REIT dealing in single-family homes—owns nearly 38,000 properties in more than 20 states. Its shares have risen more than 40% in the last year.

The REIT was founded by self-storage billionaire B. Wayne Hughes, and top shareholders include The Vanguard Group and J.P. Morgan Asset Management, according to public filings.

Meanwhile, Blackstone Group in July announced plans for a public stock offering of Invitation Homes—now the largest U.S. single-family home rental company. Blackstone has invested $8.7 billion in its 45,000-home portfolio since founding it in 2012.

Large-scale investors often make all-cash offers when purchasing houses, and they can more easily outbid individual buyers.

Laura Medina, 25, a human resources manager who attended a recent grand opening of a starter-home community in Jurupa Valley, California, said she has lost bidding wars over six months of looking for a home for herself and her son.

“There are a lot of investors out there,” she said.

The promise of a stable income from increasing rents has also turned many individuals into “accidental landlords” who rent out their homes when they move rather than sell them, according to NAR economist Lawrence Yun.

The growing number of renters makes investing in rental housing attractive. Young adults aged 18 to 34 earn $2,000 less per year today than they did in 1980, after adjusting for inflation, according to the Census Bureau, and they have amassed record levels of student debt.

Outstanding student loan debt totaled $1.2 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2015—trailing only mortgage debt among all consumer debt categories, according to the New York Fed. The average student loan monthly payment has jumped 50% in constant dollars, to $351, over the last 10 years.

Both factors have contributed to young people entering the housing market later. A survey released in June by the NAR found that 71% of non-homeowners who carry student debt said it had delayed them from buying a home.

Slow Construction

As individual and institutional landlords have siphoned off rentals at the low end of the market, new construction has been slow to meet the demand from homebuyers.

As of June, housing starts on single-family homes were on track to hit 778,000 this year, far below levels of more than a million starts per year during the 1990s and early 2000s.

That’s in part because new home construction remains depressed coming out of the recession, when builders retreated and many construction workers found other lines of work.

The resulting labor shortage continues, and is one factor slowing builders, along with higher land costs and tight construction financing, said National Association of Home Builders economist Rob Dietz.

Average residential land values are up about 79% over the last four years, to a level last seen when the housing market peaked in 2007 and 2008, according to the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy.

The cost of building a new home, including permit fees, labor and materials, meanwhile, has jumped to 61.8% of the cost of an average single-family home, compared with 48.1% in 2007.

Atlanta-based PulteGroup , one of America’s largest home construction firms, says that market forces have pushed it into building more expensive homes.

First-time buyers make up 32% of Pulte’s business today, down from 40% just five years ago. And the company has refocused its entry-level homes at a higher average price of about $350,000, targeting more affluent, urban buyers.

“We don’t see a lot of value today in running out into the exurbs and buying a lot of lots,” PulteGroup Chief Financial Officer Bob O’Shaughnessy said at an investor conference in May.

If there’s another housing downturn, he said, “that is the stuff that will shut down first.”