住房市场价格如水中望月 有报道称下注时机已到

It's no secret that U.S. home prices have enjoyed a healthy rebound in 2013 after the nightmarish 33% drop over the previous five years that triggeRed an orgy of mortgage defaults and wealth destruction. These days, monthly home-price reports regularly show double-digit percentage jumps over the year-earlier period, whether it's the 13.3% annual increase for September of the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-City Composite Home Price Index or the 12.2% annual rise for October logged by CoreLogic's home-price index.

我们都知道，在之前五年出现33%的噩梦般暴跌，并触发抵押贷款违约和财富蒸发狂潮后，美国住房价格2013年出现了健康回升。近日来，月度住房价格数据常常会显示两位数的同比增幅，9月份S&P/Case-Shiller 20个城市综合房价指数(S&P/Case-Shiller 20-City Composite Home Price Index)同比升幅高达13.3%，而房地产市场统计公司CoreLogic的10月份住房价格指数年升幅达到12.2%。

Yet, at least some observers question how much longer the home-price recovery can continue. A jump in mortgage rates along with the torrid increases in home prices have hurt transaction volume some. The market has been overly dependent on all-cash buyers such as vulture funds, which earlier this year accounted for about a third of all sales. What will happen when they have eaten their fill? Increasingly, the home-price growth will depend on conventional buyers, who must borrow from a mortgage-lending industry that is still imposing stringent lending standards on new mortgages.

然而，至少有部分观察人士质疑住房价格的回升势头还能持续多久。抵押贷款利率的攀升以及住房价格的飙升已在一定程度上影响了成交量。市场对秃鹫基金（今年早些时候占总销量的三分之一左右）等全现金买家过度依赖。如果它们的需求已经饱和，又会发生什么情况呢？住房价格的上涨将更多地取决于传统购房者，这类购房者必须从抵押贷款行业借钱，而这些行业对新抵押贷款施行的标准依然苛刻。

Still, after talking to various industry experts and analyzing disparate data, Barron's thinks that home-price appreciation should continue for the next three years, albeit at a slower pace than the double-digit increases seen this year.

不过，在与多位业内专家进行探讨，并对不同数据进行分析后，《巴伦周刊》(Barron's)认为，未来三年住房价格的上涨势头应该会持续下去，尽管增速会低于2013年的两位数增幅。

We claim some bragging rights on the subject: In two cover stories last year 'Home Prices Ready to Rebound' in the March 19 issue and 'Happy at Last' in the Sept. 10 issue we not only called the imminent recovery but hit the timing of it right on the screws.

我们在这个问题上是有夸口资本的：在2012年的两篇封面文章中（分别为3月19日刊登的《房价即将反弹》(Home Prices Ready to Rebound)和9月10日刊登的《房价终现走高势头》(Happy at Last)），我们不仅预见房地产市场复苏在即，而且精准地预测出复苏的时间。

To be sure, forecasting markets is an unforgiving and somewhat foolhardy task. And experts' three-year projections for home prices vary all over the lot. Ingo Winzer of Local Market Monitor, which tracks more than 300 U.S. metro markets, is looking for price growth of about 7% over each of the next three years, while CoreLogic, the real-estate statistical firm, expects price increases of 4.7% in 2014, 4% in 2015, and 1.9% in 2016.

当然，预测市场走向是一种难以驾驭，还有些莽撞的任务。专家们对未来三年住房价格的预期也是千差万别。房地产市场分析公司Local Market Monitor（该公司对美国逾300个都会市场进行追踪）的因戈・文泽尔(Ingo Winzer)预计，未来三年每年的房价涨幅都将达到7%左右，而CoreLogic则预计2014年房价将上涨4.7%，2015年和2016年则分别上涨4%和1.9%。

For the sake of conservatism, we're hewing to the middle range, looking for home-price jumps of 5% in each of the first two years and, perhaps, just 3% in 2016, as new construction picks up to bolster supply and more empty-nest baby boomers put their houses on the market to unlock trapped home equity. These projections somewhat mirror those of Moody's Analytics. 'The U.S. is clearly in a home-price up-cycle that has a lot of room to run,' says Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Analytics.

为保守起见，我们遵循采用中间值的原则，预计未来两年住房价格每年均攀升5%，2016年涨幅可能仅为3%，因新建住宅的增加将扩大供应，加之有更多空巢婴儿潮一代会将自己的房子挂牌出售，为房屋 资产解套。这些预期可以说与研究公司Moody's Analytics的预期是一致的。Moody's Analytics的首席经济学家马克・赞迪(Mark Zandi)称：“美国显然处于房价上涨周期，未来还有许多上涨空间。”

A constellation of factors revolves around our relatively upbeat forecast on home prices. Upswings in home prices, like the one that has just begun, tend to run in five-to-10-year cycles, due to market inefficiency arising from the inertia of home buyers' expectations.

我们对房价的预期之所以比较乐观是基于一系列因素。住房价格的上涨周期（比如刚刚开始的本轮上涨周期）往往会持续五到10年，因为购房者的预期惯性会导致市场效率低下。

Another positive: Homes are still within reach of many buyers. True, housing is somewhat less affordable now than it was in the past five years, after the recent run-up in prices and higher mortgage rates since the spring the rate on a 30-year conforming mortgage is 4.5%, up from 3.5% in the spring. But according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), which compares median incomes with median home prices in different locales, homes are still more affordable now than in any of the previous 40 years before the bust. This, of course, is the result of the virtually unprecedented home-price collapse.

另一项利好是：房价仍在许多购房者的承受范围之内。在经过近期的房价上涨和2013年春季以来抵押贷款利率的上升（30年期标准类抵押贷款利率目前为4.5%，高于春季的3.5%）之后，当前住房价格确实没有过去五年那么便宜了。但根据美国全国地产经纪商协会(National Association of Realtors, 简称NAR)的数据（该数据对比了不同地区的收入中值与房价中值），目前住房价格仍比金融危机之前40年中的任何一年都要适中。当然，这是由住房价格史无前例的大滑坡导致的。

Also lending strength to the market is the fact that much of the shadow inventory homes in the foreclosure pipeline or those with seriously delinquent mortgages has been sharply reduced. According to NAR economist Lawrence Yun, that inventory has dropped from nearly 10% of the U.S.'s 50 million mortgages in 2009 to 5.6% of the total today.

此外，“影子库存”（止赎房屋以及抵押贷款严重违约的房屋）大幅减少也是市场提振因素。NAR的经济学家Lawrence Yun表示，“影子库存” 2009年占美国5,000万按揭房的近10%，目前该比例降至5.6%。

By Yun's reckoning, distressed sales by lenders, or by delinquent homeowners with the approval of their lenders, currently account for about 15% of all home sales, compared with a third of all sales during the bust years of 2008, 2009, and 2010. Distress sales weigh not only directly on home-price indexes they typically sell at about a 17% discount to homes of comparable size and quality but they also blight the appraised values of entire neighborhoods.

Yun估计，贷款机构或违约房主经贷款机构同意而进行的降价急售目前占住房销售总量的15%左右，而2008、2009和2010年的衰退阶段占比为三分之一。降价急售不仅直接拖累住房价格指数（它们的售价一般比相同面积和质量的住房低17%左右），而且有损整个街区住房的估价。

The supply of homes for sale, as any frustrated home buyer can attest, has also dropped to rock-bottom levels. The current inventory number, according to the NAR, stands at about five months' supply at the current sales pace, compared with a more normal level of about 10 months.

待售住房供应（任何一位失望的购房者都可以作证）也降到了谷底。NAR的数据显示，以当前的售房速度计算，现有存量约相当于五个月的供应量，而比较正常的水平是10个月左右。

The supply constraints don't figure to improve dramatically, at least not over the next two years. New-home construction (both single- and multifamily) is now limping back to a pace of about one million new units next year, and not much more the following year. That's well above the 550,000 new homes built in 2009 as the Great Recession hit home-building with particular ferocity. But housing starts need to hit at least 1.5 million, according Moody's Zandi, or perhaps l.7 million, in order to meet current population growth, net immigration, the replacement of obsolescent housing stock, and demand that has built up during the housing bust.

供应面的制约估计不会出现显著改善，至少未来两年不会。预计2014年新建住宅（包括单户和多户型住宅）将回落至100万套左右，明年也不会比这多很多。这一数字远高于2009年大衰退(Great Recession)猛烈冲击住宅建筑业时的55万套新建住宅。但Moody's Analytics的赞迪称，新屋开工数至少要达到150万套乃至170万套才能满足当前人口增长、 移民和更换老旧住宅的需要以及住房市场衰退期间积聚的需求。

After all, no supply factor is as crucial to the health and balance of the housing market as new homes, even though in a typical year existing-home sales represent about 75% of all residential sales.

虽然成屋销售一般占年住宅销售总量的75%左右，但毕竟没有什么供应面因素对住房市场健康和平衡的重要性能与新建住房匹敌。

Lastly, housing prices figure to be bolstered by significant pent-up demand over the next couple of years, particularly if lenders loosen credit standards and mortgage rates remain well behaved. Household formations young adults moving to their own abodes from mom and dad's basement or from cramped apartments shared with friends is finally starting to revive after being in the deep freeze since 2007, running at about a half-million a year over the five-year period ended in 2011. With improved employment prospects and income growth, new household formations figure to hit a more-normal annual rate of about 1.1 million over the next three years.

最后，未来几年受抑制需求的大量释放会对房价构成支撑，尤其是在贷款机构放松信贷标准，抵押贷款利率保持稳定的情况下。自立门户（年轻人从父母家的地下室或者与朋友合租的狭小公寓搬入自己的住所）2007年以来一度坠入冰点（在截至2011年的五年里，每年仅为50万左右），现在终于开始回暖。随着就业前景的改善和收入的增加，预计新增自立门户者数量在未来三年里将趋于正常，达到每年110万左右的水平。

To be sure, some of these new entrants into the housing market will rent rather than buy homes or apartments. But in a sense that doesn't matter. Rentals contribute to home-price levels and new-housing starts just as surely as outright purchases do, since all such real estate is owned by someone.

当然，这些进入住房市场的新人有些会选择租房，而不是购买独栋住房或公寓。但从某种意义上来说，买房还是租房并不重要。和直接购买一样，租赁也有助于提振住房价格水平和新屋开工数，因为所有这些房产都会由某位房主所有。

Tight credit standards could, of course, inhibit future housing demand some. According to David Blitzer, managing director of S&P Dow Jones Indices and maven of the S&P/Case-Shiller Indexes, a lot of potential home buyers are finding mortgages difficult to obtain because of onerous down-payment requirements. Likewise, lenders are demanding higher credit scores than before 2003, when existing lending requirements were deemed prudent, says Blitzer. In today's market, short employment records and various credit-record dings make it tougher for buyers to qualify for a mortgage.

当然，严格的信贷标准会对未来的住房需求构成一定抑制。标普道琼斯指数公司(S&P Dow Jones Indices)的董事总经理、S&P/Case-Shiller指数专家戴维・布利策(David Blitzer)称，许多潜在购房者发现很难获得抵押贷款，因为首付要求很高。布利策表示，与之类似，贷款机构对信用分数的要求也比2003年以前高（当时将现行贷款要求视为审慎的要求）。在当今的市场上，短期雇佣记录和各种不良信用记录加大了购房者满足抵押贷款要求的难度。

Also, mortgage rates seem destined to go higher over the next three years with the tapering in Fed purchases of mortgage-backed securities. Unhelpful on that score was the recent announcement that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would be charging higher fees at the start of 2014 to guarantee mortgages of borrowers with lower credit scores and an inability to put up the full 20% down payments on home purchases.

此外，随着美国联邦储备委员会(简称Fed)抵押贷款支持证券购买规模的逐步缩减，未来三年抵押贷款利率走高应该是必然的。而房利美(Fannie Mae)和房地美(Freddie Mac)近期推行的举措也是一项不利因素，两家机构宣布，从2014年年初开始，将对信用分数较低，无力全额支付20%购房首付款的借款者收取更高的抵押贷款担保费用。

Yet, higher mortgage rates won't be a deal breaker unless they rise markedly, which could prove to be a psychological barrier. Likewise, most up-cycles in home prices tend to last five to 10 years because of inherent momentum in residential real- estate prices. The steady increases in home-equity levels of the past year have triggered a virtuous cycle that will continue to boost prices in the future.

不过，抵押贷款利率的上升不会成为关键问题，除非上升幅度非常大（可能会成为一种心理障碍）。类似的，受住宅房地产价格的内在动能影响，房价上涨周期大都会持续五到10年。过去一年住房 值水平的稳步增长已经触发了一轮良性循环，未来会继续推动价格上涨。

And perhaps most important, home prices were battered so badly during the recent home real-estate depression that they seemingly have nowhere to go but up.

此外，最重要的也许是，住房价格在近期的住宅地产衰退中受到沉重打击，应该已经没有下跌的空间，而只会走高。

Forget the gaudy year-over-year monthly price jumps of over 20% reported by the likes of Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Miami Dade County. According to a CoreLogic analysis, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Miami were, as of the second quarter, still 39.9%, 50.2%, and 42%, respectively, below their vertiginous price peaks.

菲尼克斯(Phoenix)、拉斯维加斯(Las Vegas)和迈阿密戴德县(Miami Dade County)等地的房价每月同比涨幅超过20%，但把这些花哨的数字抛在脑后吧。根据CoreLogic的分析，截至2013年第二季度，菲尼克斯、拉斯维加斯和迈阿密的房价仍较它们令人目眩的价格峰值分别低39.9%、50.2%和42%。

The CoreLogic second-quarter numbers contained other surprises, as well. While such real-estate disaster areas as Fort Myers Cape Coral in Florida and Riverside and Stockton in California were about 50% below peak values, the San Francisco San Mateo Redwood market had already recovered to just 7.6% off peak, while Boston-Quincy is just 10.9% below peak level. The latter two markets were obviously aided by strength in the most desirable neighborhoods of these coastal cities.

CoreLogic第二季度的数据还有其他令人意想不到的因素。尽管佛罗里达州的迈尔斯堡-开普科勒尔(Fort Myers Cape Coral)以及加州的里弗赛德(Riverside)和斯托克顿(Stockton)等房地产灾区房价较峰值低50%左右，但旧金山- 马特奥-雷德伍德(San Francisco San Mateo Redwood)的市场已经回升，目前仅较峰值低7.6%，而波士顿-昆西(Boston-Quincy)仅较峰值水平低10.9%。后两个沿海城市市场显然是受市内最热社区的房地产走强提振。

And a number of metro areas have already returned to peak-value prices, largely because they avoided the last price boom or got a nice boost from recent secular economic developments. Real estate in Texas (Houston, Dallas Fort Worth, San Antonio, Beaumont, and Amarillo) and Oklahoma (Tulsa and Oklahoma City) has profited mightily from the energy boom, as have Fargo and Bismarck in North Dakota and Rapid City in South Dakota.

此外，许多都会区的房价已经回升至峰值，在很大程度上是因为这些地区的房价在上次的房地产热潮中并未上涨，或者受到近期经济大发展的有力提振。德克萨斯州（休斯敦(Houston)、达拉斯-沃思堡(Dallas Fort Worth)、 安东尼奥(San Antonio)、博蒙特(Beaumont)和阿马里洛(Amarillo)）和俄克拉何马州（塔尔萨(Tulsa)和俄克拉何马城(Oklahoma City)）的房地产大大得益于能源业的繁荣，北达科他州的法戈(Fargo)和俾斯麦(Bismarck)以及南达科他州的拉皮德城(Rapid City)也是一样。

The state of Iowa; Honolulu; Louisville, Ky.; Buffalo, N.Y.; Great Falls, Mont.; and Erie, Pa. (on the fringe of the Marcellus Shale) were also at new price highs in the second quarter.

艾奥瓦州、火奴鲁鲁(Honolulu)、肯塔基州路易斯维尔(Louisville)、纽约州布法罗(Buffalo)、蒙大拿州大瀑布城(Great Falls)以及宾夕法尼亚州伊利(Erie)（位于马塞卢斯页岩(Marcellus Shale)边缘）2013年第二季度也创出了房价新高。

The table on the previous page includes the three-year home-price projections of Ingo Winzer of Local Market Monitor. His methodology involves establishing equilibrium home prices for each market, or the price for housing that the area's per capita income can comfortably support. Other inputs also enter into his calculations, including local unemployment rates, in- or out-migration, and market momentum.

Local Market Monitor的文泽尔对未来三年的房价给出了乐观的预期。他的计算方法包括为每个市场建立均衡住房价格，即该地区人均收入能够轻松支撑的住房价格。他在计算中还考虑到其他因素，包括当地失业率、居民迁入或迁出以及市场动能。

It's the last factor that has him somewhat worried over the bullish cast of his forecast of 6.9%, 7.1%, and 7.1% growth over the next three years, beginning in the third quarter of this year. He said his numbers may have been 'polluted' by large volumes of distressed sales in the past, which tend to exaggerate the current increases.

让他对自己的乐观预期（他预计从2013年第三季度开始，未来三年的房价涨幅会分别达到6.9%、7.1%和7.1%）感到有些担心的是最后一项因素。他说，他的数据可能受到过去大量降价急售的房产“污染”，这会放大当前的涨幅。

Yet he is confident that he has the direction of the trend in U.S. home prices right, if not its absolute magnitude or speed.

但他坚信自己对美国住房价格走向的把握是正确的，虽然在绝对数量或速度上会有一定出入。

And that's great news for growth in household net worth, construction employment, gross domestic product, and perhaps most important, homeowner peace of mind.

这对家庭 资产、建筑业就业以及国内生产总值的增长都是重大利好，而最重要的也许是，房市的回暖能让房主心态更加平和。