【英语中国】中国楼市：躲过末日？

So much for the expected Armageddon in China’s property market. Only last week there were reports that banks were being told to conduct stress tests against a scenario of a 60-per-cent drop in house prices in some cities. Investors fretted that the authorities knew something that they did not.

In fact, the surprise is how calm things remain. The government reported today that house prices in the country’s 70 biggest cities were flat in July compared to the month before, having fallen 0.1 per cent in June. No signs so far, therefore, of the sort of dramatic price drops that might lead to a slump in investment and put pressure on the banks.

That said, people have been buying far fewer houses since the government introduced a swathe of measures in April to try to cool the market. In terms of floor area sold, transactions fell by 29 per cent in July from the month before, with many buyers remaining on the sidelines.

That means there is still a stand-off between developers, who want to wait as long as they can before cutting prices, and the central government which wants to see cheaper housing costs. Any signs in the coming weeks that sales are picking up will be treated as evidence that the government is relaxing policy for the housing market - which it is under heavy pressure from other quarters as industrial production slows in other areas.

Yet, as Dragonomics argued last week, Beijing appears pretty determined to follow through in its latest property clampdown. “We tend to think that the government will prove tougher than the developers think, because it perceives high housing prices as a serious political issue, potentially affecting regime stability,” the Beijing-based consultancy said.

所有预言末日即将降临中国楼市的喧嚣，该歇歇了。仅仅在上周，还有报导称，中国政府要求银行进行压力测试，评估一些城市的房价若下跌60%可能带来的风险。投资者据此担心，政府知道一些他们所不知道的事情。

而实际上，事态平静得令人惊讶。政府周一发布的数据显示，7月份中国70座大城市的房价较6月持平，6月则曾经下跌0.1%。因此，迄今尚未有迹象表明，会出现那种可能导致投资锐减、银行压力增大的房价暴跌。

尽管如此，自从4月份中国政府出台一系列旨在冷却房地产市场的措施之后，人们的购房数量仍然在大幅减少。按已售出楼面面积计算，7月份交易量比上月下跌29%，很多购房者继续保持观望。

这意味着，开发商和中央政府之间的僵持还在继续。前者想尽量推迟降价，后者则希望见到更低的房价。在接下来的几周内，任何房屋销量回升迹象，都将被视作政府放松楼市政策的证据。随着工业产出放缓，中国的楼市政策正面临着巨大的来自其它经济领域的压力。

然而，龙洲经讯(Dragonomics)上周表示，北京看上去将颇为坚决地推进这轮楼市调控。这家总部位于北京的咨询机构称，“我们倾向于认为，政府会比开发商所预期的更为强硬，因为它视高房价为严肃的政治问题，有可能影响政权稳定。”

译者/麦可林