【英语财经】房价下跌加剧新兴市场困境 Falling house prices add to emerging market woes

Already battling slowing growth, capital flight, commodity price weakness and tumbling equity markets and currencies, emerging markets are facing another problem: falling residential property prices.

House prices across big Asian and emerging market economies have fallen about 2 per cent in the past year, their first slide since comparable data began in 2002, as the first chart shows.

In contrast, even the moribund developed economies have been able to achieve house price inflation of about 4 per cent over the past year, the strongest pace of growth since 2006.

Moreover, some fear this weakness in emerging market property prices could spread to the broader economy, exacerbating the struggles many countries are facing.

“Falling prices may create the need for painful balance sheet adjustments [by households], cutting consumption,” says Adam Slater, senior economist at Oxford Economics.

“House price changes could also feed back into the broader credit supply to the economy; for example, by falling prices creating bad assets in the banking sector and inducing banks to restrict credit extension,” he adds.

“And, of course, changes in house prices may affect the housing construction industry as well, with knock-on effects on the rest of the economy.”

Housing market dynamics vary widely across emerging markets. Mexican residential property prices are rising faster than in the US, while Turkey, India and South Africa are all seeing significant growth, as the second chart illustrates.

Even China, the centre of many commentators’ concerns over emerging markets, is still witnessing modest house price growth.

Yet property prices in Taiwan have tumbled more than 7 per cent in the past three months, and those in Hong Kong by more than 6 per cent.

“There were quite striking price declines in the latter part of 2015 in Hong Kong and Taiwan. The turnaround in Hong Kong seems to have been especially abrupt and comes after a long period of rapid gains,” says Mr Slater, who speculates that the reverse may be connected to the broader issue of capital outflows from Greater China.

Nominal prices are also falling in Russia and Brazil. Moreover, given both of these countries suffer from inflation of about 10 per cent, house prices are falling far faster than the chart suggests in real, inflation-adjusted terms.

In some cases, these house price falls are a reversal of sharp rises in recent years. Brazil, India and Hong Kong have all seen prices at least double in real terms since 2007, while Taiwan is not far behind, as the third chart shows.

Mr Slater believes this “opens up the possibility of quite significant corrections in the years ahead, especially where credit expansion has been rapid, such as in Brazil, Hong Kong and Turkey.

Affordability also looks stretched, in east Asia in particular. Median price/income ratios are as high as 19 in Hong Kong, eight in China and Taiwan and five to six in South Korea and Thailand, compared with 3.7 in the US, according to Oxford Economics.

“Current house price trends suggest housing markets are broadly supportive of [economic] expansion in the advanced economies, but likely to be a drag on activity in emerging markets,” says Mr Slater.

“In markets such as Brazil and Russia, steep real-term declines are under way that can only add to existing recessionary pressures” while, given the importance of property as loan collateral in much of Asia, “falling prices risk spilling over into a broad tightening of credit conditions that will slow economic growth” in that part of the world.

Neil Shearing, chief emerging market economist at Capital Economics, believes these fears are justified in parts of east Asia, as well as in Brazil.

Capital Economics is relatively unconcerned about housing markets in Asian countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, South Korea and Singapore, given that the price rises seen since 2010 have been surpassed by wage growth, meaning affordability has improved.

However, like Oxford, it is concerned about Hong Kong and Taiwan, where property price inflation has far outstripped wage growth in the past six years.

In Hong Kong, it notes that, relative to income, residential property “looks far more overvalued” now than it did before the 1997 crash, when prices fell 70 per cent peak to trough.

In common with Hong Kong, Taiwan has also seen its ratio of property prices to average wages rise two and a half fold since 2001.

Gareth Leather, Asia economist at Capital, argues that stricter capital controls in mainland China could imperil both the Taiwan and Hong Kong property markets by making it harder for property investors to funnel money to these markets.

Mr Shearing is equally concerned about what he regards as a “bubble” in the Brazilian property market, particularly in Rio de Janeiro and S?o Paulo, where prices trebled between 2008 and 2015.

He accepts that some of this rise can be justified by the greater availability of mortgage finance in Brazil, which has increased the level of effective demand. Yet Mr Shearing argues this cannot explain all of the jump in prices, which he estimates has left the market overvalued by 30-50 per cent.

Despite this, the broader Brazilian economy may be shielded somewhat from a housing decline. Home ownership remains lower than in the developed world and the preponderance of subsidised loans made by public sector banks should help to limit the build-up of non-performing loans.

Yet he believes even the muted level of contagion that is likely to ensue will help ensure “Brazil’s economy will remain depressed for some time”.

“History shows that economic downturns that are preceded by a large build-up of debt and housing bubbles tend to be followed by unusually weak recoveries,” he warns.

已经在应对增长放缓、资本外流、大宗商品走弱以及股市和本币暴跌的新兴市场，目前遇上了另一个问题：住宅房地产价格下跌。

正如第一张图表所示，过去一年大型亚洲经济体及新兴市场经济体的住房价格下降了约2%，为2002年开始统计可比数据以来的首次下降。

相比之下，即便在萎靡不振的发达经济体，过去一年的房价仍上涨了约4%，为2006年以来的最快涨速。

此外，有人担心，新兴市场房价走弱可能波及整体经济，加剧许多国家目前面对的困境。

“房价下跌可能导致（家庭）需要进行痛苦的资产负债表调整，减少消费支出，”牛津经济(Oxford Economics)资深经济学家亚当?斯莱特(Adam Slater)说。

“房价变动可能也会反过来影响经济的整体信贷供应；比如，房价下跌会让银行业产生不良资产，促使银行减少信贷扩张，”他接着说。

“当然，房价变化或许也会影响到房屋建筑行业，并在其他经济部门引发连锁效应。”

在所有新兴市场，住房市场动态差别很大。正如第二张图表所示，目前墨西哥住房地产价格的上涨速度快于美国，而土耳其、印度和南非的住房价格都出现显著上涨。

就连中国这个最令许多评论人士担心的新兴市场，也出现了温和的房价上涨。

不过，过去三个月台湾房价下跌逾7%，香港下跌逾6%。

“2015年下半年，香港和台湾的房价下跌相当引人注目。香港房价转向似乎尤为突然，因为之前快速上涨了很久，”斯莱特说。据他推测，香港房价逆转或许跟大中华区资本外流的宏观问题有关。

俄罗斯和巴西的名义房价也在下降。此外，鉴于这两个国家受困于10%左右的通胀率，经通胀调整的实际房价的下降速度远远快于图表显示的降速。

在某些情况下，这种房价下跌是对近年大幅上涨的逆转。正如第三张图表所示，自2007年以来，巴西、印度和香港的实际房价都上涨了至少一倍，台湾的涨幅也接近一倍。

斯莱特认为，这“开启了未来几年房价发生显著调整的可能性，尤其是在此前信贷飞快扩张的地区，比如巴西、香港和土耳其。”

房价承受能力似乎也达到了极限，尤其是在东亚。牛津经济数据显示，就房价中值与收入之比而言，香港高达19倍，中国大陆和台湾为8倍，韩国和泰国介于5至6倍，而美国为3.7倍。

图一

“当前房价趋势显示，在发达经济体，住房市场总体上是支持（经济）扩张的，但在新兴市场，住房市场可能对经济增长构成拖累，”斯莱特说。

“在巴西和俄罗斯等市场，实际房价开始大幅下跌，这只会加剧现有的衰退压力，”而鉴于房地产在亚洲大部分地区是重要的贷款抵押物，“房价下跌可能造成信贷环境总体收紧，拉低当地的经济增速”。

凯投宏观(Capital Economics)首席新兴市场经济学家尼尔?希林(Neil Shearing)认为，在东亚一些地方和巴西，这种担忧是合情合理的。

凯投宏观对印尼、泰国、韩国和新加坡等亚洲国家的住房市场不太担心，因为自2010年以来这些国家的工资增速超过了房价涨速，这意味着房价承受能力有所改善。

图二

然而，像牛津经济一样，凯投宏观也对香港和台湾感到担忧。过去6年里，两地的房地产价格涨速远远超过了工资增速。

凯投宏观指出，跟收入相比，目前香港住宅房产价格“的高估程度远远超过了”1997年市场崩盘之前。那时，香港房价从顶峰跌至谷底的跌幅达70%。

跟香港相同的是，自2001年以来，台湾房价与平均薪资之比升高了2.5倍。

凯投宏观亚洲经济学家加勒思?莱瑟(Gareth Leather)辩称，中国大陆收紧资本管制，令投资者更难以把资金转移到境外，这可能影响港台的房地产市场。

图三

凯投宏观的希林对他所称的巴西房地产市场“泡沫”同样担忧，尤其是在2008年至2015年间涨了两倍的里约热内卢和圣保罗。

他相信，这么大的涨幅，部分原因在于巴西的抵押贷款融资渠道拓宽了，这增加了有效需求。但希林辩称，这不能解释全部涨幅。他估计，房价大涨导致楼市被高估30%至50%。

尽管如此，巴西整体经济或许在一定程度上不受房价下跌的影响。该国的住房拥有率仍低于发达国家，加上国有银行倾向于发放有补贴的贷款，这应该有助于抑制不良贷款的积累。

不过，他认为，即便可能随之而来的蔓延在程度上是有限的，那也将促使“巴西经济将在一段时期内持续低迷”。

“历史表明，在经济下行之前发生过债务大量积累和房地产泡沫，后来的复苏通常会异常弱，”他警告称。

译者/邢嵬