2015.9.16 为什么房价如此贵

There’s also the massive regional disparity – growing up, I remember working out exactly how much I’d need to earn to afford a mortgage on my own home. It seemed achievable, because I foolishly hadn’t assumed a global recession would cause stagnant wages while house prices continued rising unhindered. And to get a mortgage on a property where I grew up in Newport, at an average of ￡115,828I’d need to earn around ￡29,000 per year. I’ll admit to earning far more. But to buy the average home where I currently live near Clapham, I’d need to earn ￡182,809. I earn far less. Why do I stay, rather than returning home and snapping up a four-bed house? The same reason anyone does – friends, work opportunities, and an emotional investment in the local surroundings.

房价所呈现的巨大地域差异逐步扩大，我仍记得计算存多少钱才能偿还房屋贷款。提前算好钱看似可行，是因为我竟愚蠢的没有预料到，全球经济衰退导致工资难以上涨，然而房价依然会一路飙升。在纽波特（美国罗得岛），要想获得一笔约为115828英镑的房屋贷款，必须每年存款29000英镑。不得不承认，有时得存更多的钱。然而，在我居住的克拉珀姆（英国伦敦南部地区），想要购买一套普通的房子，必须存款182809英镑。我能挣的钱远远不够。为什么我非要留下来，而不是回家，买一套宽敞的房？任何人都会考虑这些理由---朋友，工作机会，以及一种对于环境的情怀。

But across England and Wales, the average home costs 8.8 times the average salary. In Westminster, it’s 24 times the local salary, compared to 12 times a decade earlier.

Everywhere in England and Wales, the house price/local salary ratio has risen since 2002.

Part of the reason so many people want to buy is because renting conditions can be so poor, while rent is so high. Those hoarding properties can hike up house prices as people become increasingly desperate to get on ―the ladder‖.

Scarcity causes a number of responses: firstly panic – watch any queue outside a house in Walthamstow, or try to rent a room in London or Oxford, and realise how many people are scrabbling for any opportunity to solve their personal housing crisis. But it also

encourages hoarding: the financially solvent notice an asset’s sharp increase in value and hoard that asset, inflating the price and their profits at the same time. One in five homes in the UK is now owned by a private landlord, yet landlords only account for 2% cent of the adult population.

但在英格兰和威尔士，如果拿的是一份普通工资，那就需要花8.8倍的工资才能买到一套普通房子。在威斯敏斯特（伦敦市的一个行政区），则需要花掉当地工资的24倍，是十年前的12倍。在英格兰和威尔士，自2002年以来，房价与当地工资的比率已然上升。部分原因是，很多人在租房的环境不好，租金并不低的情况下，转而想去购买房子。这些原因累积抬高了房价，挤上有房一族的阶梯已成为奢望。住房短缺引发一系列的效应：首先是恐慌—在沃尔瑟姆斯托（英国国会地区）看房的人排成长队，而有的人会试图在伦敦或者牛津租房，从而意识到有多少人为了解决住房危机而去争夺房屋。但是这也刺激了房产囤积：有经济能力的人发现房产是种具有很大的增值潜力的资产，于是疯狂的囤积房产，造成房价上涨的同时增加收益。英国两成的家庭都属于私人房产私有者，但是这些人仅占成年人总数的2%。

But crises reach a head: at the moment, house prices are so expensive, many people will be unable to afford to buy at all, which impacts on birth rates, encourages people to move abroad, and affects the economy, both because people are spending more on rent and less on goods that boost the economy, and because housing is a precarious market to rely on to prop up GDP. It’s because the market has been allowed to grow unchecked, and landlords and investors allowed to distort and inflate the market, that houses are expensive. But to bring prices down, some homeowners have to lose out and end up in negative equity. It depends on who politicians value most – homeowners, or Generation Rent. Or, we can all sit tight and wait for the bubble to burst.

然而，住房危机已达到一个顶峰：此时此刻，房价昂贵得无人能承担，它冲击了出生率，激励人们举家外迁国外，影响了经济，都是因为人们正逐渐增多租房费用，减少对促进经济产品的花费。因为房产市场波动大，不足以支撑GDP。房地产市场的监管并不严，房地产商和投资者获准扭曲和膨胀市场，导致房价昂贵。为了降低房价，一些房产拥有者不得已减值，以负资产净值告终。它取决于政治家最重视的群体---房屋拥有者，或者租房群体。换言之，我们可以拭目以待房地产泡沫的破裂。