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Popping property bubbles
戳破房地产泡沫
Choosing the right pin
选择正确的针
House prices in Europe are losing touch with reality again. Deflating the bubbles will not be easy
欧洲的房价渐与现实脱节。挤压泡沫并非易事
THE Swedish word bo means to live; sambo to cohabit. As more people struggle to get on the housing ladder, a new word has been coined: mambo, to live with your mum. After Oslo, Stockholm is Europe's fastest growing capital—its population is expected to expand by 50% by 2030—yet cranes are scarce. The 30,000 new arrivals each year have increased competition for housing, and record-low interest rates have allowed Stockholmers to afford bigger mortgages. As a result, Swedish house prices have more than trebled since 1996 and household debt has reached 174% of after-tax income. There is talk, naturally, of a bubble.
在瑞典语中，“bo”这个词语意味着“生活”；而“sambo ”则意味着“同居。”随着越来越多的人对于买房力不从心，一个全新的词语被创造了出来：mambo，即“和你的妈妈住在一起”之意。在奥斯陆之后，斯德哥尔摩成为了欧洲增长最快的首都——其人口到2030年预计将会增长50%——然而，起重设备稀缺。每年三万的新移民增加了住房竞争，并且创记录的低利率使得斯德哥尔摩人民要承受更大的抵押贷款所带来的压力。因此，瑞典的房价已经达到了自1996年以来的两倍，家庭债务已经达到了税后的174%。最次有一个讨论，自然地，也与泡沫有关。
It is not just Sweden: in June the IMF called on policymakers to do more to curb housing prices around the world, pointing out that valuations looked high in many countries. In May the European Central Bank singled out sky-high prices in Belgium, Finland and France; in July Moody's, a ratings agency, said that Britain showed signs of a new property bubble. The trend is all the more remarkable given that many of those economies have not fully recovered from the financial crisis and are growing feebly if at all.
不仅仅是瑞典：在六月的时候国际货币基金组织呼吁政府决策人员采取更多的措施来抑制世界范围内的房价问题，并且指出某些国家的房价看起来更高了。今年五月的时候欧洲中央银行也曾指出在比利时、芬兰以及法国的房价简直就是天价；在七月份的穆迪—一家评级机构的显示英国出现了新的房地产泡沫的迹象。这一趋势变得更加引人注目并且考虑到许多的经济还没有完全的从金融危机中恢复过来，如若房地产泡沫持续增大的话，他们恐怕会变得越来越无力应对。
After the collective pre-crisis boom, European housing markets took two paths. Denmark, Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain dropped sharply; some continue to fall. Others including Belgium, Britain, Norway and Sweden only dipped before rebounding with worrying speed (see chart).
在集体经历了危机前的繁荣之后，欧洲的房地产市场道分两路。丹麦、希腊、爱尔兰、荷兰、葡萄牙以及西班牙的房价迅速跌落。其他的一些国家，包括比利时、英国、挪威以及瑞典的房价仅仅是在以令人担忧的价格反弹前略微有所下降。
The ratio of house prices to rents is 65% above its historical average in Norway, 44% above it in Finland and 43% in Britain. Incomes are also failing to keep pace, with the price-to-income ratio 46% above its long-term average in Belgium and 27% in France. Things look even more outlandish in some cities. Apartment prices in Stockholm have risen 11% over the past year, after climbing 9% the year before; homes in London went up by 19%, thanks in part to foreign speculators.
在挪威，租房的价格也高于历史水平65%，在法国和英国这个数字分别为44%和43%。人们的收入却是未能跟上这样快的增长步伐，在比利时，房价收入比已高于其长期平均水平的46%，同样的在法国，这个数字也已达到了27%。在其他一些城市，房价越发的剑走偏锋。斯德哥尔摩的公寓价格自去年上涨了9%之后又；于去年一年内上涨了11%。伦敦的房价上涨了19%，着一定程度上要“归功于”外国的炒房者。
Household debt is also hitting new records, as people take on bigger mortgages. In Norway, where the price of homes has risen fourfold since 1995, households now owe creditors two times their annual income after tax. Americans used to be far more indebted than Europeans. But Americans' debt is now below 105% of income after tax, whereas that of euro-zone households is almost 110%. “You cannot know you're in a bubble, but you can know that debt has moved too far,” says Urban Backstrom, a former governor of the Riksbank, Sweden's central bank. However, expectations that borrowing will stay cheap and not enough new homes will be built continue to push prices higher.
当人们不断承受着更大的抵押贷款时，家庭债务的数量也达到了一个新高。在挪威，房屋价格自1995年起已经增长了四倍，家庭欠债已经高达其税后年收入的两倍。美国人的负债曾远远高于欧洲人。但美国人现在的债务低于税后收入的105%，反之欧元区的家庭债务几乎是税后收入的110%。“你可能不知道自己身处在经济泡沫之中，但你可以感知到债台高筑，” Urban Backstrom——瑞典央行的前高管说道。无论如何，根据预期显示：贷款将会继续保持廉价并且足够的新房的建设将会把房价推向新高。
Central bankers cannot use interest rates to deflate the housing bubbles since, asset values aside, the economies of the countries concerned remain so sickly. Sweden's attempt to cool the market with an increase in rates in 2010 backfired: unemployment stopped falling and the country headed towards deflation, forcing the Riksbank start reducing rates again in 2011. If anything, monetary policy is likely to provide a further spur to house prices in the euro zone, since the ECB is toying with the idea of buying bonds in an effort to bring borrowing costs down yet further.
央行不能通过利率来挤压房地产泡沫是因为除了资产价值以外，相关国家的经济持续保持病态。瑞典曾试图通过提高利率来冷却市场但结果事与愿违：失业率停止下降并且整个国家走向了通货紧缩，迫使瑞典央行于2011年再次调低利率。如果说有什么不同的话，币政策的调整似乎进一步的刺激了欧元区的房价，因为欧洲央行怀着不负责的想法单纯的认为购买债券可以进一步的降低借贷成本。
Macro prudential tools, to discipline both banks and borrowers, are a subtler set of instruments. Setting stricter limits on the amount people can borrow relative to the purchase price (the “loan-to-value” ratio, or LTV) or to their household income (loan-to-income ratio) helps to curb buyers' irrational exuberance; increasing the amount of capital that banks must hold against mortgages checks theirs.
为了规范银行以及借款者，宏观调控的工具，是一系列精细的仪器。它对于人们可以借款的数额做出了严格的限制，将其与物价（贷款价值比率，或称“LTV”）或者他们的家庭收入（贷款收入比）挂钩来帮助抑制购买者的非理性消费；或提高银行为放设抵押贷款所必须持有的资本量的数额。
The Netherlands has applied strict limits of this sort, with striking results. In 2011, with the euro crisis in full swing, the average new mortgage in the Netherlands was 112% of the property's value, putting Dutch household debt among the highest in Europe. The authorities hastily introduced a host of restrictions: LTV was capped at 106% in 2012 and is due to fall to 100% by 2018; capital requirements for banks were raised immediately. The government is also gradually reducing the tax break for interest payments on mortgages. These changes, along with the economic downturn, were enough to push prices down 20% in three years in real terms (after accounting for inflation, that is).
荷兰已经上述严格的限制付诸于实践，随之而来的是显著的结果。在2011年。随着欧元区危机的全面展开，荷兰平均的新的抵押贷款是其财产价值的112%，使荷兰人的家庭债务在欧洲名列前茅。于是当局伧俗的出台了一系列限制措施：2012年贷款价值比率的上限106%并且要于2018年下降至100%；银行的资本要求也即刻被提高。政府也将逐渐降低抵押贷款付息的所得税宽减额。这些改变，随着经济的衰退，足够使按实际值计算的物价在三年内下降20%。
In contrast, neighbouring Belgium, where house prices had moved in tandem with Dutch ones until 2010, has taken a hands-off approach. As a result, while Dutch house prices have plunged, Belgian ones have increased by 11%. Belgium's market is now so overpriced that its buyers are credited with helping revive prices in the south-eastern part of the Netherlands by moving over the border.
相比之下，在相临近的比利时，其房价在2010年之前都与荷兰不相上下，却采取了不干涉的办法。因此，当荷兰的房价下跌之时，比利时的房价却又增长了11%。比利时的房价现今已如此之高导致购房者认为穿越国境线而举家搬迁到荷兰的东南部才能有助于房价的回落。
To make matters more difficult for policymakers, Europe's property booms tend to be concentrated in capital cities, which are growing for the most part, even as other regions stagnate. Ireland provides an especially garish example. It is still full of ghostly developments of never-occupied houses. Yet in Dublin, which needs 8,000 new homes a year, fewer than 1,400 were built last year. That has helped to drive local house prices up by 23% over the past year, even as the property market in the rest of the country rose by a modest 5%.
是决策者们更加为难的是，欧洲的房地产泡沫往往集中于那些即使其他地方止步不前而其自身发展却依然大踏步前进的首都城市。爱尔兰就提供了一个非常特别的例子。那些从未被入住的房子如幽灵般疯狂的增长。然而在都柏林这样每年都有8,000套住房需求的地方，其去年建造的新房却还不到1,400套。这使得当地的房价在过去的一年里上涨了23%，而该国家其他地区的房价只是适度的增长了5%。
In most growing European cities new construction is impeded by a thicket of planning restrictions, which could only be cut back with great political effort. The number of new homes completed in the European Union fell by a third between 2011 and 2013. Only three countries started building more homes last year than in the year before. In Paris the shortage of new homes is so acute that stories of illegal dwellings in cupboards and garages abound.
在欧洲的大多数城市新的工程都受到了通过极大地政治干预而所获得的规划限制的阻碍。新房的建成数量在2011到 2013之间减少了三分之一。只有英国、德国以及比利时这三国的房子较之去年有所增长。在巴黎房源的短缺非常严重，非法居住于碗橱以及车库的故事比比皆是。
Some countries have come up with clever measures to whittle down their housing deficits. This month Britain's central government launched a website that maps all its land and buildings, from offices to prisons, and invites the public to suggest better uses for them under a new “right to contest”. It has promised to release for sale any property whose current use it cannot justify. Another quick fix is to make it easier to convert unused offices and shops into houses.
一些国家已经想出一些妙招来削减其住房赤字。本月英国中央政府建立了一个网站囊括了其从办公室到监狱的所有的土地以及建筑物，并且邀请公众在一个全新的“比赛”中来赋予它们更好的用途。政府已承诺会释放出售任何当前使用不当的房产。另一个权宜之计是将未使用的办公室和商店更容易变成住房。
Perhaps the most striking innovation has been in Sweden, which in July began letting landowners build tiny rental cottages in their gardens, without any need for planning permission. These Attefallshus, can have a footprint of no more than 25 square metres and a height of no more than four metres. That is small, but it beats living with mum.
或许最影人瞩目的创新是在瑞典，七月份开始他们允许业主可以在不需要任何规划许可的情况下在其花园内构建微型住房。这些Attefallshus占地不超过25平方米高度不超过4米。小是小了一点，但也不至于和妈妈住在一起了。
