FT：中國二線城市的房地產陷阱

中國二線城市的房地產陷阱

    中國二線城市才是重點所在。重慶、南京和武漢等城市的發展速度比北京和上海更快，這些城市的居民對自己的收入更樂觀，也更有可能購置大件商品。

如今，中國已是世界最大的建築市場。因此對房地產投資者而言，應該進軍二線城市，對吧？不，瑞信(Credit Suisse)表示，這是一個價值陷阱。

其中的邏輯推理相當簡單明了。二線城市的住宅建設正在導致住宅存量供應過剩和地價泡沫——這兩個現象都對開放商的利潤率造成了下行壓力。而且，這還是在貨幣政策收緊和正在多個城市試行的遏製房地產投機措施沒有在全國範圍內推廣的情況下。

現有的證據相當令人信服。

有關供應過剩這一點，瑞信統計了住宅存量，然後除以需求，由此算出過去三年裏建成的住宅需要多長時間才能售完。

在毗鄰香港、從零起步的中國的繁榮城市深圳，住宅儲備應該隻需一年便能售完——是調查中售罄速度最快的城市。但在東北部的另一個港口城市大連，這個數字是7.5年，而武漢則需多達8年。

關於地價泡沫的計算也很簡單——相比於房價，地價的上漲速度有多快？在一些城市，差距相當明顯。例如，2010年武漢房價漲幅不到10%，但地價上漲了約30%。似乎開發商正在生產要素方麵付出過高的成本，推動部分城市的利潤率成為負數。

為方便起見，瑞信總結了投資者應該避開的十大二線城市：武漢，沈陽，濟南，長春，太原，合肥，長沙，海口，重慶，天津。

 

英文對照

                                                        China’s Tier 2 property trap

      China’s tier 2 cities are where it’s at. Cities like Chongqing, Nanjing and Wuhan are growing faster then Beijing and Shanghai, while their residents are more optimistic about their income and more likely to buy big ticket items.

And now China is the world’s top market for construction. So for property investors – tier 2 is the place to be, right? No, says Credit Suisse, it’s a value trap.

The logic is pretty straight-forward. Residential construction in tier 2 cities is leading to an oversupply of stock and frothy land prices – both of which put downward pressure on developers margins. And that’s before tightening measures and property speculation curbs – currently being trialled in various cities – get rolled out across the board.

The evidence is pretty compelling.

On oversupply, Credit Suisse looked at the the housing stock and divided it by the demand – thus coming up with a calculation of how many years it will take for housing built in the last three years to be sold.

In Shenzhen – China’s booming city-built-from-nothing on the border with Hong Kong – the housing backlog should be cleared in just one year – the quickest rate in the survey. But in Dalian – another port port city in China’s northeast – the figure is 7.5 years. In Wuhan, it’s up to eight years.

For frothy land prices the calculations are pretty simple – how fast are land prices rising compared to property prices? In some cities the divergence is pretty stark. In Wuhan, for example, property prices rose less than 10 per cent in 2010. Land prices, however, rose around 30 per cent. Developers it seems, are paying too much for the ingredients, which is pushing margins in some cities into the negative.

Credit Suisse handily sums it all up with a ranking of the top 10 tier 2 cities to avoid: (See picture)