Delicate balancing skills needed to control China's property boom
In the space of only a few years, the Pudong financial district has become Shanghai's most famous image, with its TV tower and the world's tallest hotel vying for attention with the neon-lit signs of capitalist titans.
Look a bit further south, however, and the view is not so eye-catching. The skyline is still crammed with high-rise buildings, but only a few lights on some towers are visible, a tell-tale sign that many new luxury apartments in Pudong are empty.
Shanghai, China's commercial capital, has become a lightning rod for the central government's concerns about a swelling property bubble in many cities, especially along the affluent coast.
After trying with little success to cool the market by squeezing lending, Beijing more recently delivered a edict to the mayors of these cities: get your property markets under control or lose your jobs.
But bringing the property market under control requires a delicate balancing act. A slowdown in prices would be welcome but a sharp fall disastrous, saddling Chinese banks with large wads of new bad loans and destroying the savings of many families.
“Both a rapid rise and a rapid fall will get officials sacked,” says Ren Zhiqiang, of the Huayuan property company, in Beijing. “The officials will be more worried than the developers if that happens.”
Mr Ren says a slowdown is already apparent in Beijing, in spite of the huge construction under way in the city in readiness for the 2008 Olympics. “Many buyers are waiting for prices to fall,” he says.
For the past two months anecdotal evidence suggests the campaign is starting to work in Shanghai as well, with prices cooling following the imposition of a speculative gains tax and a ban on re-selling flats until mortgages have been repaid.
Ever since the Shanghai city government announced in the early 1990s its plan to develop the largely farmland area of Pudong into one of the world's financial centres, critics have predicted imminent disaster. Yet the buildings kept on going up, making Pudong the epicentre of a boom that saw prices rise 28 per cent in the city centre last year and many apartments triple in value in as many years.
With a weak stock market and low interest rates, property is one of the few investments available for ordinary Chinese. Foreigners have also poured in, especially from Taiwan and Hong Kong, some hoping to benefit from a revaluation of the renminbi.
Investors have even bought office space in Pudong that they did not bother to let out because they were focusing only on the potential capital gain.
But assessing the state of the market has always been made difficult by the disconnection between official statistics and what military strategists like to call “the facts on the ground”.
According to the Shanghai statistics bureau, only 2.7 per cent of the properties in the city are empty. However, the residential areas of Pudong reveal a different story.
Five minutes from the financial district, the Summit Residence is a new, luxury development of 909 flats. A year after they were finished, Albert Zhao of Zhonghai Property Management Company, which runs the complex, reckons about 50 per cent of the flats are occupied, even though the complex has been largely sold.
Andy Mei at the nearby 21st Century estate agents says the 50 per cent figure is good for the area. “It is normal for around here,” he says.
Such factors led one senior Chinese academic, Yi Xianrong at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, to predict the Shanghai market could fall by 50 per cent.
However, a large proportion of empty properties does not necessarily mean demand has been artificial, or that prices will inevitably collapse. Yin Kuanghua, director of the property research centre of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, says there are many reasons why properties might be kept empty.
Many Chinese living abroad have bought properties in Shanghai in the hope of returning there, once they have made enough money.
“As Chinese, their root is here. And it's reasonable for them to buy such properties here,” he says. “Some rich Chinese collect paintings and calligraphy or antiques to hedge against inflation. That applies to property investors too. They don't rent the flats but just keep them.”
Property experts caution that the Shanghai market is very segmented and the current weakness is concentrated in the luxury end. The demand for low-cost housing remains strong, they say.
Lawrence Wu, managing director of Shui On Land's commercial division, says he sees little signs of weakness. “One of my salesmen got a call at 2am in the morning from a customer asking where he had to queue up the next day to bid for a property,” he says.
小心戳破中国房产泡沫
短短几年时间，浦东金融区成了上海最著名的象征。电视塔、世界最高的饭店，以及象征着繁荣资本主义的霓虹灯，争相吸引着人们的注意力。
稍微再向南望去，景色便不那么引人注目了。天际线上密密麻麻挤满了高层建筑，但一些高楼里只透出几缕灯光，这一迹象表明，浦东许多新建的豪华住宅都是空置的。
中央政府对许多城市不断膨胀的房地产泡沫表示担忧，尤其是富裕的沿海城市，而中国的商业中心上海已成了中央政府的避雷针。
中国政府试图通过收紧贷款为房地产市场降温，但收效甚微。最近，中国政府向这些城市的市长下达了命令：控制住房地产市场，要不然就下课。
但掌控房地产市场需要微妙的平衡技术。价格上升放缓将受到欢迎，但降幅过大就会导致灾难性后果，将使中国各银行重新背上大批坏账，许多家庭的储蓄也将受创。
“价格快速上涨和快速下跌都会使官员丢乌纱帽，”北京华远房地产公司(Huayuan property company)的任志强说，“如果出现这种情况，官员会比开发商更加担忧。”
任先生表示，北京房价增长放缓已明显，尽管该城市还在为2008年奥运会进行大规模建设。“许多买家正等着价格下跌，”他说。
过去两个月，零星证据表明，这一行动也开始在上海奏效。随着上海出台一系列措施，包括对投机交易收入强制征税，并禁止在付清银行贷款前转售，房地产市场开始降温。
90年代早期，上海市政府宣布，计划将浦东这块农田覆盖的地区开发成世界金融中心之一。自此，批评者一直预言灾难即将来临。然而，随着各种建筑不断平地而起，浦东成为房地产热的中心。去年，市中心房价上升了28％，许多住宅在这些年间价值增加了两倍。
股市疲软、利率走低，房地产是普通中国人仅有的几种投资方式之一。外籍人士也纷纷涌入上海，尤其是台湾人和香港人，其中一些人希望从人民币升值中获利。
有些投资者在浦东购买了写字楼，却懒得出租，因为他们只把注意力集中在潜在资本增值上。
但评估房地产市场的状况一直非常困难，因为官方数据和军事战略家喜欢说的“战地实况”总是脱节。
根据上海统计局的数字，该市仅有2.7%的楼房是空置的。然而，浦东的居住区显示的情况并非如此。
离金融区5分钟路程的汇豪天下(Summit Residence)是新建的豪华住宅区，共有909套住房。中海物业管理有限公司(Zhonghai Property Management Company)负责管理这个小区，该公司的艾伯特?赵(Albert Zhao，音译)估计，小区建成后1年，入住率约为50％，尽管这个小区大部分已经售出。
附近的地产中介21世纪不动产(21st Century)的安迪?梅(Andy Mei)表示，50％的比例对这个地区来说很不错了。“该比例在这一带很正常，”他说。
这些因素使得中国社会科学院(Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)的资深学者易宪容预测，上海房价可能下跌50％。
然而，大比例空置房产不一定意味着需求是人为的，也不一定意味着房价将不可避免地出现暴跌。上海财经大学(Shanghai University of Finance and Economics)房地产研究中心主任印
