中国房市难逃“硬着陆”

    中国政府于2012年初宣布，2011年中国经济增长率略有下降，但仍然保持了令人惊艳的9.2%的高速增长，全球股市对此反映积极。投资者们也仍然看好中国的未来。他们似乎相信了官方的说词——也就是中国巨大的房价泡沫正在渐渐地、平稳地缩小，因此对于中国这个全球经济引擎来说，房地产泡沫破裂的风险可谓微乎其微。

    但是数据却告诉了我们一个不同的故事。国民的买房热情使得房价上涨得太高太快了，日本上世纪90年代那样的房地产崩盘在中国上演几乎已经是板上钉钉的事实。经过官方夸大的经济增长率届时可能会遭受重大打击，中国的经济增长率可能会一路下跌到不堪想象的5%以下。

    在本文的分析中，我会大量引用我在芝加哥大学（University of Chicago）布斯商学院（Booth School of Business）的教授——也是我的良师益友——罗伯特•艾利伯的研究。艾利伯现居住在新罕布什尔州，退休后，他为朋友和客户撰写着一份非常出色的时事通讯。他早于大多数专家发现了不计后果的信贷扩张、巨额的贸易赤字和资产泡沫等问题可能造成的恶果，今天，这些问题确实已经笼罩在欧美经济的头上。

    正如艾利伯所说：“在中国，房地产对经济增长的贡献远远超过人们公认的水平，而且这完全是不可持续发展的。”

    艾利伯有一个学生住在北京，他的遭遇最早让艾利伯意识到中国的房地产泡沫存在破裂的风险。这名学生对艾利伯说，他刚刚搬到了一座公寓楼，这幢楼里有几百套房间，但整栋楼只有他一个住户。其它的房子都被炒房者买走了。

    那年年末，艾利伯来到北京一家高端开发商的办公室。该公司每卖出一套1100平方英尺（约102平方米）的毛坯房就能拿到60万美元。而买房者的年收入大概在2万到3万美元之间。考虑到这些人的收入并不算很高，很显然他们并不是在买一处可以负担得起的新住宅，而是在炒房。他们要么只在那儿住上一阵，然后将房子转手；要么就是空着不住，同时寻找下家，凭空赚取高额差价。

租金 vs. 房价

    中国的房价和租金之巨额落差让艾利伯深深震惊。一般来说，一套价值60万美元的房子如果租出去，刨去各种费用，每个月的租金还不到1000美元（假设无按揭贷款）。吸引投资者的并不是租金收入，而是房价的巨幅飙升，从2008年到去年，房价平均升值了20%到30%不等。

    租金，也就是居住在一套房子里的成本，对于房价有某种下拉作用。这是因为对于同一套房子而言，如果买房成本比租房成本贵很多的话，人们就不会去买房——除非他们认为房价会持续飙升，这是一种纯粹的赌徒心态，而且这种心理是不会持久的。在中国房地产泡沫最严重的市场上，房价达到了年租金的五、六十倍——比如上文中我们讨论过的那个例子。当房价为60万美元，年租金为1.2万美元时，房价与租金比即为50：1。哪怕是美国房市泡沫在2006年达到顶峰时，全国各地的房价租金比也远远没有达到50或60之高。当时，40：1就被认为是极高的比例了。

    那么中国的房价到底要下跌多少，买房成本才能合理地接近租房成本呢？据艾利伯估算，要实现这个目标，租金收益率至少要从目前的少于2%上涨到5%，甚至还要更高一些。

    The Chinese government's announcement last week that growth for 2011 slowed only slightly to a still impressive 9.2% was greeted enthusiastically by the world's stock markets. Investors also remain buoyant on China's future. They appear to be buying the official line that the gigantic property price bubble is gradually and smoothly deflating, posing little risk to an engine that's so crucial to the future of global trade.

    But the math tells a different story. The housing frenzy has driven prices so high, so fast, that a crash on the scale of the real estate collapse in Japan in the 1990s is a virtual certainty. And China's already exaggerated official growth rate could take a pounding, all the way to the zone of the unthinkable, into the low single-digits.

    For this analysis, I'll borrow heavily from my former professor and mentor at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, Robert Aliber. Affectionately known to his students by his initials "RZA," Aliber is now retired to New Hampshire, but he writes a superb newsletter for his friends and clients. He spotted the reckless credit expansion, huge trade deficits and asset bubbles that now haunt both the U.S. and European economies long before most experts.

    As Aliber puts it, "In China, the housing boom is a far bigger source of growth than is widely recognized, and it's totally unsustainable."

    Aliber got his first clue that the craze spelled disaster from a former student living in Beijing. The young Chicago alumnus told Aliber that he'd just moved into an apartment building with several hundred units, and was the only one living there. Investors had bought all the other apartments that hadn't sold.

    Later that year, Aliber visited the office of an upscale developer in Beijing, who was getting $600,000 for 1100 square foot units with bare walls. The folks doing the purchasing were earning between $20,000 and $30,000. Given those modest incomes, it was obvious that the buyers weren't purchasing an affordable new residence, but speculating in real estate, either to live there for awhile then flip the unit, or simply leave it vacant while seeking a buyer willing to hand them quick windfall.

Rent vs. price

    What amazed Aliber was the chasm between the prices of the apartments and the rents they fetched. A typical $600,000 unit brought a landlord less than $1000 a month in rent after expenses (assuming no mortgage). It wasn't the rental yields that attracted investors, it was the huge price appreciation, averaging from 20% to 30% from 2008 until last year.

    Rents -- the cost of living in the unit -- exercise a sort of gravitational pull on prices. That's because people won't pay far more to own a home than to rent a similar one, unless they think prices will keep soaring -- a view that's a sure sign of casino mentality, and never lasts. In China, prices in the frothiest markets are fifty or sixty time rents. That's the case with the example we discussed above, where the price is $600,000, and the rent is $12000, a ratio of 50-to-1. The 50 to 60 multiple is far above the level in most U.S. markets at the height of the bubble in 2006; in those heady days, a multiple of 40 was considered giant.

    So how far do China's prices need to fall so that the cost of owning is reasonably close to the level of rents? Aliber reckons that the rental yield on apartments will eventually go from less than 2% to 5%, or even a bit higher.