房地產恒大 中國押注房地產付出代價

成敗皆由它：中國經濟為押注房地產付出代價

艾莎  2023年10月17日

 

在違約之前，開發商恒大曾在中國的經濟繁榮中占據核心地位。

 

在中國房地產熱潮似乎還是一場穩賺不賠的賭局時，加裏·孟（音）的父母購買了一套恒大的公寓，恒大是中國最大的開發商。很快，該公司又打來電話向他們推銷另一項業務：理財。

 

這家人以為這會是風險很小的劃算交易。恒大享有全球聲譽，又是具有重要政治意義並在中國不斷增長的經濟中處於核心地位的企業。於是他們投入了畢生積蓄。

然後，不敢想象之事成為了現實。2021年，恒大的違約標誌著房地產危機的開始，這場危機動搖了中國經濟，一些規模最大的企業先後崩潰，上百萬套公寓無法按時交付。上周，另一家陷入困境的房地產公司碧桂園稱其現金已經耗盡，這意味著最糟糕的情況可能尚未到來。這兩家公司合計負債5000億美元，在未來一段時間內都將麵臨重大考驗。

中央延緩房地產市場崩潰的能力如今已受到質疑，哪怕最近有往往會推動銷售的黃金周假期，消費者依然對買房沒什麽興趣。

 

房地產危機給中國政治領導層帶來了嚴峻挑戰：他們要努力讓國家擺脫數十年來對房地產推動經濟增長的依賴，但此舉卻加深了信任危機。金融市場正在質疑中國經濟奇跡的前景，普羅大眾正在放棄對中共承諾的信念，即未來經濟會更好。

 

“以前的話，還是蠻相信政府的，相信黨和國家，”加裏·孟說，他們家在恒大理財項目上投入了220萬人民幣，目前還有140萬沒能討回。警方警告他們不準上訴，但加裏·孟說信任已經受到考驗。“現在的話隻能說挺心寒的反正，”他說。

 

全球經濟學家、投資人和央行都對中國金融穩定麵臨的風險發出了警告，呼籲北京采取措施穩定住房危機。國際貨幣基金組織首席經濟學家皮埃爾·奧利維爾·古林查斯上周表示，中國的房地產危機正在削弱信心，並造成了財務困難。

 

“問題很嚴重，”他在摩洛哥馬拉喀什舉行的決策者峰會上表示。世界銀行和國際貨幣基金組織均下調了對中國經濟的增長預期。

國際貨幣基金組織首席經濟學家皮埃爾·奧利維爾·古林查斯（中）表示，中國的房地產市場正在損害人們的信心。

 

經濟學家認為，中國需要重新調控政策，減少對基礎設施和房地產等領域投資的依賴，轉而更加重視消費者。

 

“挑戰在於如何在不刺激另一場房地產泡沫、不適得其反導致問題惡化的情況下，給予房地產行業足夠的支持，幫助其應對轉型的難關，”研究公司凱投宏觀的中國問題負責人朱利安·埃文斯-普裏查德表示。“要讓經濟出現轉機，確實需要讓房地產行業穩定下來，”埃文斯-普裏查德還說。

 

近段時間，中國官員曾試圖遏製房地產銷售的下跌，但目前收效甚微。碧桂園周二未能償還近2000億美元的債務，還有40多萬套已出售公寓尚未完工。

 

房地產市場變成中國的經濟支柱經曆了一個漫長的過程。多年來，每個人都把賭注押在了房子上。地方政府靠賣地收益來充實自己的金庫。家庭紛紛投資公寓。建造、油漆、園林和房地中介方麵的就業機會遍地都是。

 

在崩盤引發住房危機之前，恒大曾寫就一段與中國經濟增長相輔相成的成功故事。該公司由企業家許家印在1996年創立，當中國的農業經濟剛開始擁抱資本主義之時，恒大修建的公寓樓就已經在推動中國大片地區的城鎮化了。

 

隨著恒大通過向國內各銀行和國外投資人借貸而快速擴張，它變成了一個擁有無數子公司的龐然大物，涉足業務包括瓶裝水、養豬、電動汽車、甚至還有職業足球。

 

其它開發商也效仿起恒大模式，為中國的高速增長做出了無可比擬的巨大貢獻。2020年，中央政府開始重點解決債務堆積問題，並限製了房地產企業向銀行借貸的能力。這項被稱為“三條紅線”的政策讓恒大等公司爭相尋找變現渠道，為避免現金短缺而更加冒進。

 

恒大變本加厲地通過預售房屋來籌措資金，這是該行業的慣例。該公司還要求員工投資短期貸款，否則就會失去獎金。它還勸說已購買恒大公寓的業主購買回報豐厚的理財產品。加裏·孟及其父母得到的承諾收益率為8%和9%。2021年，他們有兩筆投資獲得了收益，但到2022年，利息支付就完全停止了。

 

中國的密集借貸助長了其它行業的過度擴張：保險公司收購酒店，一家娛樂公司買下了一家好萊塢製片公司。所有這些經濟活動都很容易讓政府忽視正在形成的泡沫，因為包括恒大在內的這些企業都在幫助地方政府——先是購買土地，然後建設大型綜合體，既促進了經濟增長，又讓地方官員得到了提拔。

2021年，一處上了鎖的恒大樓盤入口。 

 

如今，這些企業大多陷入了過度的泥淖，許多人都在關注中央下一步會采取怎樣的措施。

中國專家的共識是，中國不會再回到那種過度擴張的時代。但問題依然存在，尤其是在經濟大前景愈發黯淡的情況下。

 

“房價持續上漲了30年，要停止這個進程，經濟的方方麵麵都不可能不承受巨大的陣痛，”卡內基國際和平基金會高級研究員邁克爾·佩蒂斯說。從房地產繁榮中受益的所有人——銀行、地方政府和家庭——都麵臨利害攸關的風險。“政治上的問題是誰來承擔損失，”佩蒂斯說。

 

目前，政府已經明確表示購房者不會成為房地產市場清算的受害者。盡管出現違約，但恒大去年仍獲得官方許可繼續建造30萬套公寓。

 

恒大對政策製定者的重要性如今似乎已不複存在。本月，公司稱許家印因涉嫌“違法犯罪”已被當局拘捕。恒大理財部門的其他幾名高管和員工也被帶走接受問訊。

 

日本金融公司野村證券的經濟學家估計，要確保破產開發商建樓交房，將需要550億美元到820億美元的資金。

 

但這些開發商還欠了很多其他人的錢。據估計，油漆、建造和中介等方麵的供應商還未要回超過3900億美元的欠款。向中國開發商提供了巨額貸款的外國債權人正聯合起來，試圖通過複雜的重組方案收回部分資金。

 

研究中國經濟的亞洲協會政策研究所名譽高級研究員郝福滿(Bert Hofman)表示，中國領導人需要投入更多資金來支持私營企業和家庭，這樣才能鼓勵他們消費，推動經濟發展。這將意味著將更多資金轉移到農村養老金和擴大醫保覆蓋範圍等領域。

 

“更寬泛地說，（中國）需要進行改革，在不利用房地產為杠杆的情況下解決經濟需求側的問題，”郝福滿說。

 

“光靠嘴說是不夠的，”他說。“而是要讓政策行動和切實辦法給民眾帶來信心，讓他們覺得經濟是在好轉的。”

Claire Fu自首爾、Patricia Cohen自摩洛哥馬拉喀什對本文有報道貢獻。

艾莎(Alexandra Stevenson)是時報上海分社社長。

China Bet It All on Real Estate. Now Its Economy Is Paying the Price.

After relying on a borrow-to-build model for decades, Beijing must make difficult choices about the country’s housing market and economic future.

 

Before it defaulted, the developer China Evergrande was at the center of China’s economic boom.

 By Alexandra Stevenson， Reporting from Hong Kong

Oct. 16, 2023

When China’s housing boom seemed like a one-way bet, Gary Meng’s parents bought an apartment from China Evergrande, the country’s biggest developer. Soon the company called with another pitch: to manage their wealth.

It was a good deal with little risk, the family thought. Evergrande had global recognition and was a politically important company at the heart of China’s growing economy. They invested all their savings.

Then the unthinkable happened. In 2021, Evergrande defaulted, representing the start of a real estate meltdown that has shaken China’s economy, felled some of its biggest companies and left home buyers waiting on more than a million apartments. Last week, another embattled real estate company, Country Garden, said it had run out of cash, signaling that the worst may be yet to come. The companies have a combined $500 billion in debt and face critical hurdles in the coming weeks.

Beijing’s ability to slow the collapse is now in doubt as consumers continue to show a lack of interest in buying real estate, even during a recent Golden Week holiday, usually a bumper period for sales.

The housing crisis has presented an acute challenge for China’s political leadership: It is trying to wean the country off its decades-long dependence on real estate to drive economic growth, but doing so is deepening a crisis of confidence. Financial markets are questioning the future of China’s economic miracle, and households are abandoning their faith in the Chinese Communist Party’s promise of a better economic future.

“In the past, I believed in the government and the party and the country,” said Mr. Meng, whose family invested $300,000 in Evergrande’s wealth management arm and is still owed $194,000. Warned by the police not to file a complaint with higher levels of the government, Mr. Meng said that trust had been tested. “Now I can only say that I am quite bitterly disappointed,” he said.

Economists, investors and central banks around the world are warning of the risks to China’s financial stability, calling on Beijing to act to stabilize the housing crisis. The International Monetary Fund’s chief economist, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, said last week that China’s real estate crisis was undermining confidence and causing financial difficulties.

“The problem is serious,” he said at a summit of policymakers in Marrakesh, Morocco. Both the World Bank and the I.M.F. have cut their growth outlook for China’s economy.

 

The I.M.F.’s chief economist, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, center, said problems in China’s real estate market were damaging confidence.Credit...Fadel Senna/Agence France-PresseChina needs to recalibrate, according to economists, to be less dependent on investment in areas like infrastructure and real estate and more reliant on consumers.

“The challenge has been trying to give the sector enough support to cope with the transition without stimulating another property bubble or a rebound that makes these problems worse,” said Julian Evans-Pritchard, the China country head at Capital Economics, a research firm. “To get a turnaround in the economy,” Mr. Evans-Pritchard added, “you really need the property sector to stabilize.”

China’s Stalling Economy

• What to Know: China’s economy, which once seemed unstoppable, is plagued by a series of problems, and a growing lack of faith in the future.
• Real Estate Crisis: Country Garden and Evergrande, two of China’s largest developers, are at the center of the spiraling property crisis that has shaken the country’s economy.
• A Worrying Sign: Prices are falling again in China after a two-month reprieve, renewing fears that the country is on the cusp of a pernicious economic condition called deflation.
• Beijing’s New Plan: China’s political leaders, under pressure to support the country’s fragile recovery, are slowly steering the economy on a new course that calls for investing heavily in manufacturing.

Chinese officials have tried to put a floor under falling real estate sales in recent weeks but so far to little effect. Country Garden failed to make a payment on nearly $200 billion of debt on Tuesday and still has more than 400,000 apartments that it sold but has not finished building.

How the real estate market came to be at the center of China’s economy was long in the making. For years, everyone bet on housing. Local governments lined their coffers with the proceeds from selling land. Families invested in apartments. Jobs for builders, painters, landscapers and real estate agents were in abundance.

Before its collapse set off the housing crisis, Evergrande was a story of success that ran alongside China’s growth. Founded in 1996 by the entrepreneur Xu Jiayin, who is also known as Hui Ka Yan, Evergrande built apartment complexes that helped to urbanize large sections of the country just as China’s agrarian economy began to embrace capitalism.

As Evergrande borrowed from Chinese banks and foreign investors to fuel a rapid expansion, it became a behemoth with thousands of subsidiaries. It moved into businesses like bottled water, pig farming, electric cars and even professional soccer.

Evergrande’s model was copied by other developers and real estate became the single-biggest contribution to China’s breakneck growth. In 2020, the central government turned its focus to the debt that had piled up and restricted the ability of real estate companies to borrow from banks. The policy, known as the “three red lines,” put a limit on how much debt developers could have and left companies like Evergrande scrambling for cash and turning to more risky ways to avoid a cash crunch.

Evergrande ramped up an industry practice of raising money by selling apartments before they were built. It also turned to employees, telling them to invest in short-term loans or lose out on bonuses. And it persuaded people who had already bought Evergrande apartments to buy investment products offering huge returns. Mr. Meng and his parents were promised 8 and 9 percent interest on their investments. They made money on two of them in 2021, but by the next year, interest payments had stopped altogether.

The intensive borrowing in China fed excesses in other sectors: Insurers bought hotels, and an entertainment company bought a Hollywood studio. All the economic activity made it easy for the government to ignore the bubble that was building because companies, including Evergrande, were helping local governments — first by buying land and then by building complexes that contributed to economic growth that got local politicians promoted.

 

The locked entrance to an Evergrande residential project in 2021.Credit...Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times

Now that most of these companies are in the graveyard of corporate excess, many are wondering what Beijing will do next.

Consensus has emerged among experts in China that it will not return to those days of excess. But questions remain, especially as the broader economic outlook darkens.

“When you have 30 years of rising prices, there is no way you can stop that process without tremendous pain in every part of the economy,” said Michael Pettis, a senior fellow at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Everyone who benefited from the real estate boom — the banks, local governments and households — has a lot at stake. “The political question is, who takes the loss,” Mr. Pettis said.

Until now, the government had made clear that home buyers would not be the casualties of the reckoning in the real estate market. Despite having defaulted, Evergrande was allowed by officials to continue building 300,000 apartments last year.

Evergrande’s importance for policymakers now appears to be over. This month, the authorities detained its founder, Mr. Xu, on suspicion of what the company called “illegal crimes.” Several other top executives and employees of its wealth management arm have been taken in for questioning.

Ensuring that apartments promised by now-broke developers get built will cost $55 billion to $82 billion, according to estimates from economists at the Japanese financial firm Nomura.

But these same developers owe many other people money. Suppliers, like painters, builders and brokers, are waiting on more than $390 billion, by one estimate. Foreign creditors who lent billions to Chinese developers are banding together to try to get some of their money back through complicated restructuring plans.

And China’s leaders will need to spend much more money to bolster private businesses and households to encourage them to spend and get the economy moving, said Bert Hofman, an honorary senior fellow on the Chinese economy at the Asia Society Policy Institute. This will mean transferring more money into things like rural pensions and increasing health care coverage.

“More broadly, reforms need to be put in place to manage the demand side of the economy without using real estate as a lever,” Mr. Hofman said.

“Just words is no longer enough,” he said. “It is about policy actions and visible events that would give people confidence to say yes, there is something to this.”

Claire Fu contributed reporting from Seoul, and Patricia Cohen from Marrakesh, Morocco.

Alexandra Stevenson is the Shanghai bureau chief for The Times. More about Alexandra Stevenson