The race for space

地盘争夺战

House prices in the rich world are booming

富裕国家的房价正在飙升

Unusually, suburbs not cities are feeling the heat

不同寻常的是，郊区而不是城市正在感受这种热度

Apr 8th 2021 | Bicester and Rhinebeck

N A SUNNY afternoon in Kingsmere, a new suburb of Bicester, a town 50 miles (80km) north-west of London, the streets are abuzz with people strolling and children playing. In ten years 1,600 homes have been built on the site, and another 900 are soon to follow. In the sales office for Bovis Homes, Flip Baglee says she has “never known it to be so busy”. Sentiment in Rhinebeck, a village 80 miles north of New York City, is similarly buoyant. Many of the properties advertised in the window of Gary DiMauro Real Estate—from mansions to cottages—are already taken.

在一个阳光明媚的下午，在伦敦西北50英里(80公里)的Bicester小镇的新兴郊区Kingsmere，街道上到处都是散步的人和玩耍的孩子。在10年里，1600栋房屋已经在这块土地上建成，另外900栋也将很快建成。在Bovis Homes的售楼处，Flip Baglee表示，她“从不知道这里会这么热闹”。在纽约市以北80英里的 Rhinebeck村，人们的情绪同样高涨。在Gary DiMauro 房地产公司的橱窗里打出广告的许多房产——从豪宅到别墅——都已经被抢购了。

词汇

Abuzz/ 嗡嗡的；嘁嘁喳喳的

Sentiment /感情，情绪

Buoyant/有浮力的；上涨的

mansions /大厦

Cottage/小屋；村舍;（农舍式的）小别墅

 

 

Kingsmere and Rhinebeck are not the only places warming up. American house prices rose by 11% in the year to January, the fastest pace for 15 years. Those in Britain increased by 8% last year, and in Germany by 9%. The pattern is seen in much of the rich world (see chart 1). Across the 25 countries tracked by The Economist, real house prices have risen by an average of 5% in the latest 12-month period.

Kingsmere 和 Rhinebeck并不是唯一（房价）升温的地方。今年1月，美国房价上涨了11%，是15年来最快的涨幅。去年，英国的房价增长了8%，德国增长了9%。这种模式在大多数富裕国家都能看到(见表1)。在《经济学人》追踪的25个国家中，实际房价在最近12个月平均上涨了5%。

In many countries, rises have been rapid enough to attract the attention of politicians and central bankers. In a break with the pattern of the past decade it is prices in less populated, but still commutable, places, rather than city centres, that are rising most. Covid-19 seems to have set off a quest for space that could outlast the pandemic.

在许多国家，房价上涨速度之快足以引起政客和央行官员的注意。与过去十年的模式不同的是，在人口较少但仍有流动的地方，房价上涨最多，而不是城市中心。Covid-19似乎引发了人们比疫情持续时间更长久的对于（居住）空间的追求。

词汇

 Commutable/可取代的；可交换的

Outlast/比…长久；从…中逃生

At first glance, the robustness of house prices in the face of the economic turmoil inflicted by covid-19 might seem baffling: property prices typically move in tandem with the economy. But furlough schemes and fiscal stimulus have limited distressed sales this time. Interest rates are ultra-low: in America those on 30-year mortgages are 1.5 percentage points below their level in 2010. Lockdowns and the reduced opportunity to spend mean that those who have kept their jobs have stashed away cash. Lucian Cook of Savills, a property consultancy in Britain, remarks that home values are being “driven by the haves rather than the have-nots”. In America, 14% of all mortgage applications made in February were for second homes, twice the share in April last year.

乍一看，面对covid-19造成的经济动荡，房价的坚挺似乎令人困惑:房地产价格通常与经济走势一致。但这次，休假计划和财政刺激措施限制了廉价出售。利率极低:在美国，30年期抵押贷款利率比2010年低1.5个百分点。封锁和消费机会的减少意味着那些保住工作的人已经把钱存起来了。英国房地产咨询公司Savills的Lucian Cook评论说，房价“是由富人而不是穷人推动的”。在美国，二月份所有的抵押贷款申请中有14%是第二套房申请，是去年四月份的两倍。

词汇

Robustness/稳健性

 Turmoil/ 混乱，骚动

 Tandem/纵列的

Furlough/ 休假；暂时解雇

Stash away/存放，藏匿

have-not/穷人

 

 

As covid-19 spread and many countries locked down, people’s homes also became their offices, schools, gyms and bakeries. Many therefore spent more on their properties. Revenues for Home Depot, America’s largest DIY store, rose by 20% last year. In Britain permissions granted for home improvements, such as extensions, increased by a third in 2020 compared with the average in 2016-19, reckons Barbour ABI, a market-research firm.

随着covid-19的传播和许多国家的封锁，人们的家也变成了他们的办公室、学校、健身房和面包店。因此，许多人在房产上的花费更多。美国最大的DIY商店Home Depo去年的收入增长了20%。据市场研究公司Barbour ABI估计，在英国，与2016-19年的平均水平相比，2020年获准进行房屋装修(如扩建)的许可增加了三分之一。

 

Other people sought new places to live. Homes in America have taken an average of 47 days to sell since May, compared with 59 days in the previous year. In Britain a temporary holiday on stamp duty (a housing-transaction tax) caused the volume of sales to rise in the final quarter of 2020 to a 14-year high.

其他人则寻找新的地方居住。自五月以来，美国的房屋平均需要47天才能售出，而去年是59天。在英国，印花税(一种住房交易税)的临时中止（holiday 在这应该就是说暂且停止了该法律,末尾与之呼应）导致了2020年最后一个季度的销售量上升到14年来的最高点。

 

For those wanting more space the best solution has been to move out of city centres. Prices per square foot in London, for instance, are 40% higher than in surrounding counties. House prices in less densely populated, but still commutable, areas of Britain have risen faster over the past year than in more populous ones. A similar pattern is also evident in America (see chart 2).

对于那些想要更多空间的人来说，最好的解决办法是搬出市中心。例如，伦敦每平方英尺的价格就比周边县高出40%。在英国人口密度较低但仍然有（商业）交换的地区，房价在过去的一年里比人口稠密的地区上涨得更快。类似的情况在美国也很明显(见表2)。

词汇

Commutable/可取代的；可交换的；可抵偿的

That bucks a trend of the past decade, when megacities such as London and New York surged ahead of quieter locations—a reversal that Zillow, an American property-listings firm, calls the “great reshuffling”. House prices outside Germany’s seven biggest cities rose by 11% last year, compared with 6% within them. Prices in Sydney’s northern beaches, within commuting range of the city, are up by 10%.

这与过去十年的趋势相反，当时像伦敦和纽约这样的特大城市的发展超过了那些宁静的城市——美国房地产上市公司Zillow称之为“大洗牌”的逆转。去年，德国七大城市之外的房价上涨了11%，而城市内部的房价上涨了6%。悉尼北部海滩，在城市通勤范围内，价格上涨了10%。

词汇

Buck/反抗；抵制（趋势相反，例如股票）

 

 

By contrast, house prices in central London and Sydney rose by just 4% and 3% last year, respectively; those in Manhattan fell by 4%. Rental markets are cooling too. Rents for flats in Sydney fell by 5% last year. Those in Melbourne, which endured a 111-day lockdown last year, fell by 8%. Figures from Zillow suggest that rents fell by 9% in New York City and 15% in Manhattan in particular.

相比之下，伦敦市中心和悉尼的房价去年分别只上涨了4%和3%;曼哈顿则下降了4%。租赁市场也在降温。去年，悉尼的公寓租金下降了5%。去年，墨尔本经历了111天的封锁期，其房价下降了8%。Zillow的数据显示，纽约的房租下降了9%，尤其是曼哈顿的房租下降了15%。

The pandemic has disrupted some of the usual flows into cities. In the years before covid-19, London lost residents to the rest of Britain. But the outflows were made up for by people coming in from abroad. The pandemic, and perhaps Brexit, seem likely to have reduced the inflow. One estimate suggests that London’s resident population may have declined by 8% in 2020. Australia’s borders have been shut to non-residents since March 2020. Recent graduates, faced with the prospect of working from a shared home, may still be living with their parents.

疫情阻断了一些正常流入城市的人/流。在covid-19之前的几年里，伦敦的居民流出到英国其他地区。但是流出的人口被从国外涌入的人口所弥补。疫情，或许还有英国脱欧，似乎都可能减少了人口流入。一项估计显示，2020年伦敦的常住人口可能会减少8%。自2020年3月以来，澳大利亚对非居民关闭了边境。最近的毕业生，面临着在共享的家庭工作的前景，可能仍然和他们的父母住在一起。

 

Outflows from cities have risen, too. A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland finds that migration out of cities in America doubled to 56,000 people per month from March 2020 compared with the 2017-19 average.

从城市流出的资金也在增加。克利夫兰联邦储备银行（Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland）的一项研究发现，与2017-19年的平均水平相比，从2020年3月起，美国城市外的移民人数翻了一番，达到每月5.6万人。

 

 

Some of the flows to cities will pick up as the pandemic ends. Students and international migrants will return in droves. Some investors are therefore betting big on big cities. A new development in Manhattan selling large flats for $12m offers the “premier answer to post-pandemic living”. AXA Investment Managers, a firm that owns properties in 15 countries, has snapped up 1,233 flats in the heart of London, Britain’s largest residential site.

随着疫情结束，流入城市的部分人口将会增加。学生和国际移民将成群结队地返回。因此，一些投资者在大城市下了大赌注。曼哈顿的一个新开发项目以1200万美元的价格出售大型公寓，为“疫情后的生活提供了最佳答案”。安盛投资管理公司，一家在15个国家拥有房产的公司，在英国最大的住宅区伦敦的中心抢购了1233套公寓。

词汇

Drove/（做着相同事的）人群

 

 

Yet the allure of less-dense places seems likely to persist. government advice to work from home, where in place, could be gone by the summer, but remote working may be here to stay. According to a survey of 20,000 employers around the world by Manpower, a recruitment firm, two-fifths of bosses plan to permit their employees to work from home at least some of the time. People might be willing to put up with longer commuting times in return for more living space or lower housing costs, if they are commuting less often. Suburban property prices would then inch towards those in the city.

然而，人口密度较低地区的吸引力似乎仍将持续。政府关于在家工作的建议可能会在夏季前消失，但远程工作可能会继续存在。根据人力资源公司对全球2万名雇主的调查，2 / 5的老板计划允许他们的员工至少有一些时间在家工作。如果人们减少通勤次数，他们可能愿意忍受更长时间的通勤时间（减少上下班奔走时间，增加工作时间），以换取更多的居住空间或更低的住房成本。郊区的房价将逐渐向城市靠拢。

词汇

allure /诱惑力；引诱力

 

The fate of overall house-price growth could well rest with policymakers. Emergency support for homebuyers and homeowners will be withdrawn as the pandemic draws to a close: in Britain, tax holidays are due to end later in the year. Other countries may look to take the heat out of housing markets. The government in New Zealand, where prices are rising at an annual rate of 22%, has taken steps to dampen speculation. The governor of the Bank of Canada has worried about “excess exuberance”, and plans to watch the housing market closely. A fear of jeopardising the economic recovery could mean that policymakers tread gently for now. That would give the race for space more room to run. ■

整体房价上涨的命运可能完全取决于政策制定者。随着疫情接近尾声，对购房者和房主的紧急支持将被撤回（就比如上文，英国对于购房印花税的“holiday”）:在英国，免税期将在今年晚些时候结束。其他国家可能会寻求给房地产市场降温。新西兰的房价正以每年22%的速度上涨，政府已经采取措施抑制投机。加拿大央行行长担心“过度繁荣”，并计划密切关注房地产市场。对危及经济复苏的担忧可能意味着政策制定者目前的行动要谨慎。这将给空间（房地产业）竞赛带来更大的发展空间。■

词汇

 Exuberance/丰富，茂盛；健康

Jeopardise/危及（等于jeopardize）；使…受危险