经济学人下载:顶级商业房产,如质数般稀少

Led by Britain, which had seen the steepest fall of the big property markets (see chart 5), values are rising again. According to IPD, which provides information on property markets, British commercial property delivered a total return of 15.2% in 2010, its strongest performance for four years. Investing in property has paid off handsomely for many since late 2009. Global REITs performed twice as well as global stocks and bonds in the 12 months to the end of September 2010. Take a closer look at this resurgence, however, and the picture becomes more complicated.

经历了商业房产巨幅下跌的英国（参见图表5）正在带领商业房产的价值再次攀升。根据IPD提供的房地产市场信息，英国商业地产市场2010年的总回报率为15.2%，是四年来表现最为强劲的一年。对于很多人来说，自2009年末以来，投资房地产收益颇丰。在截止到2010年九月的12个月里，全球房地产投资信托(REITs)的表现要好过全球股票和债券的两倍之多。但是如果近距离看这次复苏，情况将变得更为复杂。

In one crucial respect, the bubble in commercial property was less dangerous than in the residential sector: there was no development boom and hence no oversupply. The enormous amount of liquidity sloshing around the system was directed at acquiring existing properties rather than building new ones. “This was an excess of capital, not an excess of cranes,” says Jonathan Gray, the boss of Blackstone’s real-estate business.

一个关键点是，商业房产的泡沫不如住宅板块的泡沫危险：没有开发热，因此也就没有过度供给。该系统周围庞大充盈的流动资金被用于购买已有的房产，而不是用于新建。“这是资金的过剩，不是起重机的过剩”，黑石集团(Blackstone)房地产业务总裁乔纳森·格雷(Jonathan Gray)说。

That flood of money drove up debt burdens and property values and reduced yields (the ratio of the income flow from a property to its value). Madness became routine: the 110% loan-to-value financing for a hotel in Germany, offered to a borrower with no knowledge of either hotels or Germany; the fact that yields on Grafton Street in central Dublin, hardly a retail paradise, came close to those in some of the world’s most prestigious shopping streets; the willingness of staid fund managers to base their investment case on capital gains rather than rental growth.

这些流动资金增加了债务负担和房产价值，减小了投资收益（来自房产的收益与其价值之比）。疯狂成为常态：在德国，贷款投资一家酒店的贷款价值比(loan-to-value)达110%，而借款方既不懂酒店，也不懂德国；都柏林市中心的格拉芙顿街(Grafton Street)很难说得上是一个购物天堂，但是那里的投资收益接近世界上最知名的购物街；古板的基金经理更愿意让他们的投资案例凭借资本收益获得成功，而不是靠租金的增长。

If the market had been left to run for a little longer, it might have become crazier still. Just before the crisis broke, there had been talk of securities made up exclusively of riskier development loans. But in contrast to the overbuilding of the early 1990s, when rapid rental growth persuaded developers to dig lots of holes in the ground, this time lenders and investors were disciplined enough to want income-producing properties; they were just not disciplined enough to price the risks correctly.

如果这个市场当时再持续一段时间，可能还会变得更疯狂。就在危机爆发之前，曾讨论过完全由高风险的开发贷款所构成的债券。但是和1990年代的过度开发相反（那时快速增长的租金促使开发商在地上挖了许多坑），这次贷款者和投资者头脑还是足够清醒，他们想要的是投资型的房产；他们只是在正确计算风险上头脑不够清醒。