[2008.08.02] 房市：现在租房，稍后买房

Housing market
房市

Rent now, buy later
现在租房，稍后买房

Jul 31st 2008
From The Economist print edition

Prices may be tumbling, but rents are still rising
房价或许在下降，但房租仍在上涨

BRITAIN is a nation divided by its citizens’ attitudes to the housing market. Among investors, estate agents and homeowners with eye-watering mortgages the mood is gloomy: every piece of news about the rapidly deflating housing bubble (prices have fallen by 9% since last October) is pored over and lamented. Among the young and houseless, price falls are a cause for celebration, even if the logjam in the money markets means that at present only those with the fattest piggy-banks can take advantage of cheaper homes.

在英国，人们对房市的观点一分为二。投资商、房地产经纪人和不堪贷款重负的私房房主情绪低落：房产泡沫迅速破裂 （自去年10月以来，房价已下跌9%），与此相关的每一条消息都会引发他们的关注和哀叹。青年人和无房者却为房价下跌欢欣鼓舞，尽管当下货币市场的僵局意味着只有储蓄丰厚的人才能趁机捞到便宜的房子。

But capital values are only one part of the housing story. Britain’s private rental sector has grown enormously over the past five years, fuelled by a vogue for “buy-to-let” schemes that has promoted rental property as a safe, indeed highly profitable, investment. Half a million private landlords now control 2.5m homes, roughly an eighth of the total housing supply. The Association of Residential Letting Agents reckons that the value of rented homes, estimated at around £500 billion, exceeds the total value of all the commercial premises in Britain. And although falling capital values will hurt landlords, their gloom is brightened somewhat by the fact that there is plenty of business, and rents are still rising.

但资本价值只是有关房产的一页篇章。过去五年来，受”先买后租”风尚的影响，英国的私人出租业有了很大发展。这种风尚使得出租房产成为一项安全，而且确实收益颇丰的投资。50万的房主如今掌控着250万的房屋，几乎占所有房屋总数的八分之一。住宅出租代理商协会估计，租用房屋价值（估计在5000亿欧左右）超过了全英商用房屋总价值。而且，尽管走低的资产价格影响了房东们的利益，但生意还不错、租金回报也在增加，他们也就不那么难过了。

“The amount of transactions being done in rentals is in complete contrast to the state of the freehold market,” says Lucian Cook, a residential-property expert at Savills, a big estate agency. Rents rose in every part of the country last year, he says, with rates varying from a modest 1.5% in northern England to 11.6% in central London. More recent statistics from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) paint an equally bullish picture. According to its latest survey, the balance of its members reporting rising rents compared with those reporting falls was 32% in the three months to April, continuing a trend that has been running since 2003. Falling prices and rising rents meant that 23% more surveyors have seen yields rise than fall over the same period.

大房产代理商第一太平戴维斯（Savills）的住房财产专家路西安库克（Lucian Cook）表示：”租房交易数额与不动产市场的情况形成了鲜明对比。”他说，去年英国各地的房屋出租交易都有所增加，只不过北部地区增加了1.5%，而中部地区增加11.6%。（英国）皇家特许测量员协会（RICS）更近一期的统计数据勾画了一副同样乐观的市景。该协会的最新调查显示，今年年初到4月间，其成员房租增加的报告比降低的报告多了32%，房租增长继续2003年以来的势头。房价下跌和房租上涨意味着又有23%的调查员认为同期收益增加而不是降低。

Indeed, declining house prices are one explanation for resilient rents, says Simon Rubinsohn, chief economist at RICS. An exodus from the market of would-be buyers, propelled by the lack of credit or unwilling to invest while prices are heading down, has boosted demand for rented accommodation. There are downward pressures on rents too: many frustrated sellers have decided to let their houses instead, boosting supply. But a lot of these are desirable two- or three-bedroom houses, rather than the less popular shoebox flats favoured by buy-to-let landlords, and they attract chunky premiums. Growth may slow in the coming months, says Mr Rubinsohn, but it is not likely to go into reverse.

（英国）皇家特许测量员协会（RICS）首席经济学家西蒙罗宾逊（Simon Rubinsohn）表示，房价走低确是房租上弹的原因之一。房价下降之际，信贷紧缩或是投资意愿低落使得大批潜在购房者退出购房市场，从而导致租房需求上升。房租也面临下滑的压力：许多受挫的卖房者下定决心租房，而不卖房，使租房供给上升；其中很多是抢手的有两个或三个卧室的套房，而不是稍微逊色的鞋盒大小的公寓（”先买后租”房东们往往买的是这种公寓，他们吸引了大笔的保险费）。罗宾逊说，在今后的几个月了，房租涨势可能放缓，但还不大可能出现下滑的情况。

Strong demand for rented housing may be easing the pain for buy-to-let landlords, but it is bad news for first-time buyers, who are by now virtually an extinct species (numbers are at their lowest for almost 30 years) and have nowhere to go. Rents rose more slowly than prices for many years, as the popularity of buy-to-let increased supply. Then, renting offered the young, especially, a haven from galloping house-price inflation. Now renting is sheltering landlords from a falling market too.

强劲的租房需求可以抚平”先买后租”的房主们的伤痛，对于首次买房的人确是一个打击。事实上后者已经越来越少（他们的人数降到近30年来最低），没有出路。很多年来，随着”先买后租”风尚推高了房屋供给，房租一直比房价增长缓慢。那时，租房给人们，尤其是年轻人，提供了一个房价飞涨的避难所；现在，租房也给房主们提供了一个房价下跌的避难所。

译者：mxrruler   http://www.ecocn.org/forum/viewthread.php?tid=13028&extra=page%3D1