The race for space

地盤爭奪戰(zhàn)

House prices in the rich world are booming

富裕國家的房價正在飆升

Unusually, suburbs not cities are feeling the heat

不同尋常的是，郊區(qū)而不是城市正在感受這種熱度

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.

在一個陽光明媚的下午，在倫敦西北50英里(80公里)的Bicester小鎮(zhèn)的新興郊區(qū)Kingsmere，街道上到處都是散步的人和玩耍的孩子。在10年里，1600棟房屋已經(jīng)在這塊土地上建成，另外900棟也將很快建成。在Bovis Homes的售樓處，F(xiàn)lip Baglee表示，她“從不知道這里會這么熱鬧”。在紐約市以北80英里的 Rhinebeck村，人們的情緒同樣高漲。在Gary DiMauro 房地產(chǎn)公司的櫥窗里打出廣告的許多房產(chǎn)——從豪宅到別墅——都已經(jīng)被搶購了。

詞匯

Abuzz/ 嗡嗡的；嘁嘁喳喳的

Sentiment /感情，情緒

Buoyant/有浮力的；上漲的

mansions /大廈

Cottage/小屋；村舍;（農(nóng)舍式的）小別墅

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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（房價）升溫的地方。今年1月，美國房價上漲了11%，是15年來最快的漲幅。去年，英國的房價增長了8%，德國增長了9%。這種模式在大多數(shù)富裕國家都能看到(見表1)。在《經(jīng)濟學(xué)人》追蹤的25個國家中，實際房價在最近12個月平均上漲了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.

在許多國家，房價上漲速度之快足以引起政客和央行官員的注意。與過去十年的模式不同的是，在人口較少但仍有流動的地方，房價上漲最多，而不是城市中心。Covid-19似乎引發(fā)了人們比疫情持續(xù)時間更長久的對于（居?。┛臻g的追求。

詞匯

?Commutable/可取代的；可交換的

Outlast/比…長久；從…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，面對covid-19造成的經(jīng)濟動蕩，房價的堅挺似乎令人困惑:房地產(chǎn)價格通常與經(jīng)濟走勢一致。但這次，休假計劃和財政刺激措施限制了廉價出售。利率極低:在美國，30年期抵押貸款利率比2010年低1.5個百分點。封鎖和消費機會的減少意味著那些保住工作的人已經(jīng)把錢存起來了。英國房地產(chǎn)咨詢公司Savills的Lucian Cook評論說，房價“是由富人而不是窮人推動的”。在美國，二月份所有的抵押貸款申請中有14%是第二套房申請，是去年四月份的兩倍。

詞匯

Robustness/穩(wěn)健性

?Turmoil/ 混亂，騷動

?Tandem/縱列的

Furlough/ 休假；暫時解雇

Stash?away/存放，藏匿

have-not/窮人

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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.

隨著covid-19的傳播和許多國家的封鎖，人們的家也變成了他們的辦公室、學(xué)校、健身房和面包店。因此，許多人在房產(chǎn)上的花費更多。美國最大的DIY商店Home Depo去年的收入增長了20%。據(jù)市場研究公司Barbour ABI估計，在英國，與2016-19年的平均水平相比，2020年獲準(zhǔn)進行房屋裝修(如擴建)的許可增加了三分之一。

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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.

其他人則尋找新的地方居住。自五月以來，美國的房屋平均需要47天才能售出，而去年是59天。在英國，印花稅(一種住房交易稅)的臨時中止（holiday 在這應(yīng)該就是說暫且停止了該法律,末尾與之呼應(yīng)）導(dǎo)致了2020年最后一個季度的銷售量上升到14年來的最高點。

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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).

對于那些想要更多空間的人來說，最好的解決辦法是搬出市中心。例如，倫敦每平方英尺的價格就比周邊縣高出40%。在英國人口密度較低但仍然有（商業(yè)）交換的地區(qū)，房價在過去的一年里比人口稠密的地區(qū)上漲得更快。類似的情況在美國也很明顯(見表2)。

詞匯

Commutable/可取代的；可交換的；可抵償?shù)?/span>

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%.

這與過去十年的趨勢相反，當(dāng)時像倫敦和紐約這樣的特大城市的發(fā)展超過了那些寧靜的城市——美國房地產(chǎn)上市公司Zillow稱之為“大洗牌”的逆轉(zhuǎn)。去年，德國七大城市之外的房價上漲了11%，而城市內(nèi)部的房價上漲了6%。悉尼北部海灘，在城市通勤范圍內(nèi)，價格上漲了10%。

詞匯

Buck/反抗；抵制（趨勢相反，例如股票）

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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，倫敦市中心和悉尼的房價去年分別只上漲了4%和3%;曼哈頓則下降了4%。租賃市場也在降溫。去年，悉尼的公寓租金下降了5%。去年，墨爾本經(jīng)歷了111天的封鎖期，其房價下降了8%。Zillow的數(shù)據(jù)顯示，紐約的房租下降了9%，尤其是曼哈頓的房租下降了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.

疫情阻斷了一些正常流入城市的人/流。在covid-19之前的幾年里，倫敦的居民流出到英國其他地區(qū)。但是流出的人口被從國外涌入的人口所彌補。疫情，或許還有英國脫歐，似乎都可能減少了人口流入。一項估計顯示，2020年倫敦的常住人口可能會減少8%。自2020年3月以來，澳大利亞對非居民關(guān)閉了邊境。最近的畢業(yè)生，面臨著在共享的家庭工作的前景，可能仍然和他們的父母住在一起。

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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.

從城市流出的資金也在增加。克利夫蘭聯(lián)邦儲備銀行（Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland）的一項研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，與2017-19年的平均水平相比，從2020年3月起，美國城市外的移民人數(shù)翻了一番，達到每月5.6萬人。

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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.

隨著疫情結(jié)束，流入城市的部分人口將會增加。學(xué)生和國際移民將成群結(jié)隊地返回。因此，一些投資者在大城市下了大賭注。曼哈頓的一個新開發(fā)項目以1200萬美元的價格出售大型公寓，為“疫情后的生活提供了最佳答案”。安盛投資管理公司，一家在15個國家擁有房產(chǎn)的公司，在英國最大的住宅區(qū)倫敦的中心搶購了1233套公寓。

詞匯

Drove/（做著相同事的）人群

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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，人口密度較低地區(qū)的吸引力似乎仍將持續(xù)。政府關(guān)于在家工作的建議可能會在夏季前消失，但遠程工作可能會繼續(xù)存在。根據(jù)人力資源公司對全球2萬名雇主的調(diào)查，2 / 5的老板計劃允許他們的員工至少有一些時間在家工作。如果人們減少通勤次數(shù)，他們可能愿意忍受更長時間的通勤時間（減少上下班奔走時間，增加工作時間），以換取更多的居住空間或更低的住房成本。郊區(qū)的房價將逐漸向城市靠攏。

詞匯

allure /誘惑力；引誘力

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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. ■

整體房價上漲的命運可能完全取決于政策制定者。隨著疫情接近尾聲，對購房者和房主的緊急支持將被撤回（就比如上文，英國對于購房印花稅的“holiday”）:在英國，免稅期將在今年晚些時候結(jié)束。其他國家可能會尋求給房地產(chǎn)市場降溫。新西蘭的房價正以每年22%的速度上漲，政府已經(jīng)采取措施抑制投機。加拿大央行行長擔(dān)心“過度繁榮”，并計劃密切關(guān)注房地產(chǎn)市場。對危及經(jīng)濟復(fù)蘇的擔(dān)憂可能意味著政策制定者目前的行動要謹慎。這將給空間（房地產(chǎn)業(yè)）競賽帶來更大的發(fā)展空間?！?/span>

詞匯

?Exuberance/豐富，茂盛；健康

Jeopardise/危及（等于jeopardize）；使…受危險