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The housing market
房市
Cool it
该降温了
Property prices are rising swiftly. The Bank of England may intervene
房价一路攀登，英格兰银行可能插手
BRITAIN'S housing market is like food in a microwave, says Spencer Dale, the chief economist at the Bank of England. It can “turn from lukewarm to scalding hot in a matter of a few economic seconds”. Since the crisis the bank has gained new tools to control the market's temperature. Now that the heat is rising, it may soon start testing them out.
英格兰首席经济学家斯宾塞·戴尔说，英国房市就像微波炉里的食品,“从经济角度来看，几秒之内就能从温热到滚烫”。自欧债危机以来，银行已经学到了一种控制市场温度的新手段。然而现在随着市场升温，这些新手段或许也要开始接受全面考验。
Until last year house prices were rising predominantly in prosperous central London boroughs. That was largely because of an influx of cash-rich buyers, says Neal Hudson of Savills, an estate agency. People saw posh property in the capital as a shelter from economic turmoil abroad. Elsewhere in Britain, the housing market was torpid. Potential buyers struggled to find mortgages. Falling real wages, economic uncertainty and the memory of plummeting house prices during the crisis curbed Britons' obsession with property.
繁华的伦敦中心市镇去年房价还在显著上升。第一太平戴维斯房地产机构的尼尔·哈德逊称，这种现象主要是土豪扎堆造成的。人们把首都地区豪华时髦的地产看作躲避动荡的国外经济的避难所。在英国的其他地区，房市也很萎靡不振。潜在买家为了房屋贷款垂死挣扎。经济危机期间下降的实际工资、经济的不确定性以及直线下降的房价遏制了英国人对房产的痴迷。
That changed in 2013. Prices rose by 6.8% in the year to January, according to the Office for National Statistics. They are still increasing fastest in London—up 13.2% compared with last year—but the inflation has spread to outer boroughs. In Brent, an unfashionable part of north-west London, prices have risen 31% in a year, according to a report from Nationwide, a building society. It recorded chunky increases in every part of Britain.
2013年情况有所改变。根据国家统计局数据，直至今年一月，房价已上涨了6.8个百分点。伦敦房价还在以最快速度增长—与去年相比增长了13.2%—但是通货膨胀已经变得一发不可收拾，甚至影响到了伦敦以外的地方。据全英房屋抵押贷款协会报道显示，作为伦敦西北部不甚有名的博伦特，其房价一年内就已经上涨了31%。此外，英国各地房价都出现了前所未有的大幅提升。
These higher prices are a problem for first-time buyers, but they are not yet unsustainable. Nationally, house prices remain 16% below their pre-crisis peak, adjusted for inflation. Prices are high relative to wages, but that is not surprising. Successive governments have failed to free enough land for new housing developments, while doggedly preserving green belts. Borrowing costs have fallen over recent decades, in part because of a global glut of savings, making it easier for Britons to sustain large mortgages. Neither factor is likely to reverse any time soon.
对于首次购房者来说，房价更高是一个问题,但是这种价格还可能持续。在全国范围内,房价仍比危机前为了通货膨胀做出调整的峰值水平低16%。房价比工资更高,但这并不令人惊讶。历届政府都未能给新住宅开发用地留下足够空间，而固执地保留绿化带。最近几十年借贷成本下降，部分原因是全球储蓄过剩,使英国人更容易持有大量的抵押贷款。而这两个因素近期都不可改变。
Even so, the housing market is notoriously prone to bubbles. In January Mark Carney, the bank's governor, warned MPs of the dangers of “extrapolative expectations”—people rushing to buy on the assumption that prices will continue to surge. Hints of that are visible. People increasingly think house prices will keep climbing. Even though the government's “Help to Buy” schemes, which subsidise higher-risk mortgages, are probably having only a moderate direct impact, publicity surrounding them has fed a broader conviction that prices can only go up.
即使如此，房地产市场还是容易出现泡沫。1月, 央行行长马克·卡尼警告国会议员关于“外推预测”的危险——人们争相把钱投向“房价会持续上涨”这样一个预设（当然这种预设也并非没有可能实现）。人们越来越觉得房价会持续上涨。即使这样，政府提出的平息高风险抵押贷款的“帮助购房”政策也可能只能带来些微影响，因为周边环境和舆论让人们相信房价还是会持续上升。
Moreover, as borrowers chase higher prices their finances are becoming stretched. At the end of 2013, the average new loan for first-time buyers was 3.4 times the borrower's income—the highest level on record. Barclays, a bank, currently offers mortgages as large as 5.5 times the borrower's income. While interest rates are low, payments on such large loans are manageable. But when rates eventually rise, these borrowers could struggle. A wave of mortgage defaults, accompanied by falling house prices as banks try to sell repossessed houses, could cause yet another British banking crisis.
除此以外，由于借款者纷纷朝着高房价房产努力，他们的经济情况也越发紧张。2013年底，首次购房者的平均新增贷款是借款人的收入3.4倍，达到历史上的最高水平。巴克莱银行目前提供的抵押贷款是借款人收入的5.5倍。然而利率低，偿还这种大额贷款还是可行的。但是当利率开始稳步上升时，这些借款者就有点心有余而力不足了。银行试图出售回收房，因而房价下跌，如此一来一波又一波的抵押贷款违约很可能会导致另一次英国的银行业危机。
The Bank of England's new Financial Policy Committee (FPC) says it is watching for “emerging vulnerabilities” in the market. Formed less than a year ago to confront threats to financial stability, including bubbles, its range of “macroprudential” tools aim to influence the behaviour of the financial system. Whereas politicians hope rising house prices will cheer voters ahead of next year's general election, the committee can afford to take a longer view. With interest rates expected to remain low for a few more years, it is mulling what to do.
英国央行的新金融政策委员会(FPC)说他们正在坐等市场“即将出现的漏洞”。 金融政策委员会成立不到一年，就面临包括房价泡沫在内的金融不稳定因素的威胁，其职能范围的“宏观审慎”工具旨在影响金融行业的一举一动。而政客们希望上涨的房价可以在明年的大选之前重振选民信心,这样金融政策委员才会做长远打算。由于几年内预计利率仍保持在较低水平,FPC正在考虑该做什么。
Dabbing the brakes
踩刹车
One approach is stricter vetting of borrowers. From April 26th banks will have to check that applicants have enough spare cash to cope if the Bank of England raises interest rates as markets expect (to around 3% in 2019). That is still a remarkably low standard. Future interest rates are uncertain; in past decades they have frequently exceeded 5%. The FPC has requested the power to impose tougher interest-rate tests, and will probably have it by the summer. That would allow it to curb the size of new loans, without increasing costs for existing borrowers.
控制局面的一种方法是严格审查借款人。从4月26日起，银行必须检查申请者是否有足够的闲钱应对英格兰银行利率提高的打算(到2019年的3%左右)。事实上这还是一个较低标准。未来利率是不确定的,在过去的几十年,他们经常超过5%。金融政策委员会要求实施更严厉的利率测试,这个测试可能会在夏天。这项测试不增加现有借款人的成本，也可控制新增贷款数额。
Explore and compare house prices in 13 British regions over time with our interactive house-price tool
用交互式房价工具探索和比较13个英国地区不同时间的房价
An alternative is more vigorous stress tests of mortgage lenders themselves, using stringent scenarios that assume interest rates rise sharply while house prices fall. Forcing lenders to hold buffers large enough to withstand such a shock should deter them from offering the riskiest kinds of mortgage.
除了利率测试，还有一个针对借贷者的压力测试，这个测试使用严格的场景，假设利率大幅上升，房价下跌。强迫接待者承受这样的冲击往往让他们不敢提供风险最高的抵押贷款。
Kevin Daly, an economist at Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, thinks the FPC will enforce tougher affordability tests this year, possibly as soon as June. That would take some heat out of the market. It could also be unpopular. Poorer people would have to save for longer to buy a house. Wealthy home-owners would lose the comfort of swiftly rising prices. And George Osborne, the chancellor of the exchequer, would probably regret the cooling of a pre-election housing boomlet. But the FPC is independent for a reason. It should not fear to act.
投行高盛投资公司的一个经济学家凯文·戴利认为，金融政策委员会赶在今年6月实施更严格的负担能力测试。这可能会使房产市场降温，也可能不受欢迎。经济条件较差的人可能需要花费更长时间为买房存款，富有的房屋所有者也可能因为急速上升的房价颇感不适。英国财政大臣乔治?奥斯本或许会后悔选前冷却房地产短期繁荣的措施。但金融政策委员独立也是有原因的，他们可不怕采取行动。译者：张丹 校对：沈晓旭
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