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温哥华房价狂飙,但为何连房主都高兴不起来

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VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Between multimillion-dollar tear-downs, blocks full of backyard cottages and towering condominiums that are sold and resold several times before they are even built, there is no shortage of anecdotes about this city’s housing frenzy.

不列颠哥伦比亚省温哥华——价值数百万美元的待拆房、满是后院小屋的街区,以及建成之前就已经被多次出售和转售的高耸公寓楼,这个城市一点也不缺少关于住房狂热的轶事。
Here is a new one: Vancouver is so expensive that politicians want to tax its real estate market into submission, and many homeowners — who will lose money if home prices fall — think it’s the best idea they’ve heard in years.
这里有一个新的:温哥华如此昂贵,以至于政客想通过征税来整顿房地产市场,很多房主——如果房价下跌,他们会损失财产——也认为,这是他们在很多年来听到的最好的主意。
“I would like to see a correction to sober up this whole place,” said Rob Welsh, a retired airplane mechanic who lives in a Vancouver suburb. Mr. Welsh bought his house in 2000 and has become a paper millionaire based on its appreciation. It makes him more anxious than happy.
住在温哥华郊区的退休飞机机械师罗布·韦尔斯(Rob Welsh)说:“我希望有一场纠正,让整个地方清醒过来。”他于2000年买了自己的房子,因为升值而成为了纸面上的百万富翁。比起快乐,这更让他感到焦虑。
“If I got to lose 200 or 300 grand to keep the kids and the future of this place, so be it,” he said.
“如果我得失去20万或30万美元来保护这个地方的孩子和它的未来,那就这样做吧,”他说。
Like many cities around the world, Vancouver is grappling with punishing housing costs that have pushed out large swaths of residents — and are causing distress among young adults who can’t afford rent today and take it for granted that they will never own a home.
和世界各地的许多城市一样,温哥华也在努力应对把大量居民赶出市中心的高昂房价,它给那些如今无力支付房租、认为自己永远都不会拥有住房的年轻人带来了苦恼。
Part of the reason is the attraction of Vancouver itself, and not just among Canadians. Between its natural beauty, its temperate climate and Canada’s liberal immigration policies, the city has become a magnet for foreign buyers, especially from China.
造成这种情况的部分原因是温哥华本身的吸引力,而且不只加拿大人有这样的感受。由于自然美景、温和的气候和加拿大宽松的移民政策,这座城市已经成为吸引外国买家,尤其是中国买家的磁石。
Many places, in both Canada and the United States, have tried remedies to the squeeze: tenant protections, housing subsidies and steps to enable developers to build higher and faster so that more housing will come online. But few have gone as far as British Columbia.
在加拿大和美国的很多地方试图缓解住房紧张:保护租户、住房补贴,以及让开发商房子越建越高、越修越快,从而让更多的房子上线。但不列颠哥伦比亚省的做法无出其右。
Last year, in a provincial election almost entirely about housing costs, citizens voted out the center-right B.C. Liberal Party, which had run British Columbia for 16 years, and brought in a government led by the left-of-center B.C. New Democratic Party. Since then, the New Democrats have not only tried to increase the housing supply, but have also proposed a slew of measures that aim to curb housing demand and chase away overseas buyers.
去年,在一场几乎完全围绕住房成本的省级选举中,公民投票否决了领导不列颠哥伦比亚省16年的中间偏右的不列颠哥伦比亚自由党(B.C. Liberal Party),让中间偏左的不列颠哥伦比亚新民主党(B.C. New Democratic Part)上台。自那时起,新民主党不仅试图提高住房供应量,还提出了一系列旨在抑制住房需求、驱赶外国买家的措施。
The New Democrats raised British Columbia’s foreign-buyer tax to 20 percent of a home’s purchase price, from 15 percent. (Ontario has a 15 percent tax.) In addition, the party plans to impose higher property taxes on second homes, on families whose primary breadwinner’s earnings come from money abroad and on homes valued at more than 3 million Canadian dollars ($2.3 million). Vancouver has passed a number of local measures, including a tax on empty homes.
新民主党把大不列颠哥伦比亚的外国买家税从房产价格的15%提高到了20%(安大略省的税率为15%)。此外,该党计划对第二套房,养家者的主要收入来自国外的家庭,以及价值超过300万加元的房产征收更高的房产税。温哥华当地通过了一系列措施,包括对空置房征税。
“There’s no question that many of the measures we are bringing in are bold, but we felt they were critical if we were really going to address this crisis,” Carole James, British Columbia’s finance minister, said in an interview.
“毫无疑问我们推出的很多措施都很大胆,但我们觉得如果真的要解决这场危机,它们是关键,”不列颠哥伦比亚省财政部长卡罗尔·詹姆斯(Carole James)在一次采访中说。
This would seem politically perilous. Two-thirds of Canadians own their homes, roughly the same share as in the United States. And Canadians, like Americans, expect to make money from the investment. Yet a number of polls, and interviews with homeowners like Mr. Welsh, suggest that Vancouverites are so shocked at the price levels that even homeowners want the market to cool.
这在政治上似乎是危险的。三分之二的加拿大人拥有自己的房子,与美国的比例大致相同。加拿大人和美国人一样,也希望从这项投资中获利。然而,一些民调和对上述的威尔斯等房主的采访表明,温哥华人对房价水平感到非常震惊,以至于房主也希望市场降温。
In 2016, the nonprofit Angus Reid Institute in Vancouver found that roughly two-thirds of residents in the metropolitan area wanted home prices to fall, including half of homeowners. More startling was that one in five homeowners in the survey expressed a desire to see home prices fall by 30 percent or more.
2016年,温哥华的非盈利组织安格斯·里德学院(Angus Reid Institute)发现,这个大都会地区几乎三分之二的居民希望房价下降,包括一半的房屋拥有者。更让人震惊的是,调查中有五分之一的房主表示,希望看到房价下跌30%甚至更多。
No doubt, many voters would think twice about that opinion if home prices actually crashed. Still, respondents “were clearly reacting from a place of deep anxiety, even desperation, about their own or their loved ones’ ability to access the housing market,” said Shachi Kurl, executive director of Angus Reid.
毫无疑问,如果房价真的暴跌,许多选民会重新考虑这个观点。尽管如此,受访者的反应“显然是由于他们对自己,乃至他们所关爱的人进入房市的能力存在深深的焦虑,甚至是绝望,”安格斯·里德执行董事沙奇·库尔(Shachi Kurl)说。
And so far, people like what they see from the new government’s attempts to rein in the market: In a separate Angus Reid poll this year, large majorities of British Columbians supported the housing measures proposed by the New Democratic government.
到目前为止,新政府控制房市的尝试是人们乐于见到的:在安格斯·里德今年的另一项调查中,大多数不列颠哥伦比亚省人支持新民主党政府提出的住房措施。
“Unbeknownst to many people in the local population, Vancouver has been sold as a subsidized resort town and retirement community to the world,” said Josh Gordon, a political science professor at Simon Fraser University here. “We are now seeing the culmination of that dynamic.”
“当地许多人并不知道,温哥华已经作为一个受资助的度假村和退休社区向全世界出售,”西蒙·弗雷泽大学(Simon Fraser University)政治学教授乔什·戈登(Josh Gordon)说。“我们正在目睹这种趋势的顶点。”
Vancouver, surrounded by snow-capped mountains and wide maritime views, has never been especially cheap. But home and condominium prices are up by close to 16 percent over the past year, and about 60 percent over the past three, according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver.
温哥华被白雪皑皑的山脉和广阔的海景包围,房价从未特别便宜。根据大温哥华区房地产委员会(Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver)的数据,过去一年,家庭和公寓住宅价格上涨近16%,过去三年上涨约60%。
What makes these gains so remarkable is that unlike Silicon Valley, London or New York — where the presence of high-paying tech and finance jobs helps explain housing costs — Vancouver has relatively low salaries. As part of their bid for Amazon’s second headquarters, Vancouver officials boasted about having “the lowest wages of all North American tech hubs.”
增长如此引人瞩目的原因在于,在硅谷、伦敦或纽约,高收入的科技和金融工作的出现有助于解释住房成本,而温哥华却不一样,这里的薪水相对较低。为了申请成为亚马逊第二总部,温哥华官员夸口说,“在全北美各大科技中心,这里的工资水平是最低的。”
“We have plenty of jobs, but you might need two or three of them to be able to afford a place to live,” said Andy Yan, director of the City Program at Simon Fraser.
“我们有很多工作,但你可能需要两三个人的工资才能负担得起住处,”西蒙·弗雷泽城市项目主管安迪·严(Andy Yan)说。
How much of the city’s housing demand is coming from China is hotly debated. Government statistics show that foreign buyers own about 5 percent of the housing stock in the metropolitan area, but the numbers are several times as high for new condominiums, which helps to explain why a surge of building hasn’t done much to reduce prices, according to an analysis by Mr. Yan. And this almost certainly underestimates the influence of foreign capital, since the data exclude Canadian immigrants with money from overseas.
该市的住房需求有多少是来自中国,这个问题引起了激烈辩论。政府统计数据显示,外国买家拥有城区住房存量的5%,但这个数字是新建公寓的数倍,根据安迪·严的分析,这有助于解释为什么这一波建造热潮对降低房价没有太大作用。而且这一数字几乎肯定低估了外资的影响,因为它不包括使用海外资金的加拿大移民。
The real estate industry contends that the issue is not an influx of Chinese, who have been coming to Vancouver for decades, but zoning restrictions that prioritize low-density living, outside of a few high-rise areas.
房地产业争辩说,问题不在于几十年来涌入温哥华的中国人,而是在于温哥华的的分区限制措施,它的首要目标是发展几处高楼区域之外的低密度生活区。
“I live 15 minutes from the downtown core in a house,” said Keith Roy, a real estate agent. “That’s crazy. I should be in a townhouse at this distance, maybe even a low-rise condo building.”
“我住在距市中心15分钟车程的一座独栋房子里,”房地产经纪人基思·罗伊(Keith Roy)说。“太疯狂了。在这种地段,我应该住的是联排别墅,甚至可能是低层共管公寓。”
The figures show, however, that unlike other expensive West Coast cities like San Francisco, where the housing supply has long lagged behind population growth, Vancouver has consistently produced new housing. Over the past decade, the housing stock has grown by about 12 percent, while the population has grown by about 9 percent, according to the city.
在旧金山等房价昂贵的西海岸城市,住房供应远远落后于人口增长,然而数据显示,温哥华一直在生产新住房。根据该市的数据,在过去十年中,住房储备增长了约12%,而人口增长了约9%。
This disparity has persuaded the city to broaden its measures beyond just a push for new buildings to efforts like the empty homes tax.
这种差距已经说服该市采取更多措施,而不仅仅是采取征收空置房屋税等推动新建筑投入使用的措施。
“It’s getting out of the mind-set that just more is better,” said Gil Kelley, the city’s general manager of planning, urban design and sustainability.
“人们不再认为多多益善,”温哥华规划、城市设计和可持续发展总经理吉尔·凯利(Gil Kelley)说。
Tom Davidoff, an economist at the University of British Columbia, said it was all of the above. Vancouver is popular with foreign buyers, yes. But it also has strict zoning laws that reserve most of the city’s land for single-family homes, as well as high income taxes but low property taxes of about a quarter of a percent of the property value.
不列颠哥伦比亚大学的经济学家汤姆·戴维杜夫(Tom Davidoff)说,以上都是房价高的原因。是的,温哥华很受外国买家欢迎。但它也有严格的分区法律,把城市大部分土地用做独户住宅,此外它的收入所得税很高,但物业税很低,仅占物业价值的四分之一左右。
“The message we have sent the world is, ‘Come and buy our real estate, but do not try to make a living here,’” Mr. Davidoff said. “Mission accomplished.”
“我们向全世界发出的信息是,‘来买我们的房地产,但不要在这里谋生,'”戴维杜夫说。“这个任务已经完成。”
While the new government’s housing measures are popular with many voters, richer homeowners are fuming. A recent stroll through Vancouver’s wealthier West Side turned up bright red signs protesting the tax on $3 million homes. “Are you angry yet?” read one. “Rally against the N.D.P. tax grab now.”
虽然新政府的住房措施受到众多选民的欢迎,但更富有的房主十分愤怒。最近在温哥华较富裕的西区散步时,可以看到鲜红色的标牌,抗议征收300万美元的房产税。“这下你愤怒了吗?”其中一个牌子上写着。还有“反对新民主党的税收掠夺。“
A group of wealthy homeowners also petitioned to get Mr. Davidoff, the economist, fired. His sin: talking favorably about increased property taxes.
一群富有的房主也发起请愿,要求解雇经济学家戴维杜夫。他的罪过就是支持增加财产税。

温哥华房价狂飙,但为何连房主都高兴不起来.jpg

However it happened, Vancouver’s transformation to an international gateway has given the city something of an identity crisis. For Vancouverites who a generation ago took it for granted that they could buy a home or condo near the urban core, the trade-offs for the steep rise in prices are hard to accept.

不管发生了什么,温哥华向国际门户的转变给这座城市带来了身份危机。一个世代以前,温哥华人认为他们可以在市区中心附近购买住宅或公寓,对他们来说,房价急剧上涨的代价是难以接受的。
“People who live and work in Vancouver can’t afford to live here,” said Nathalie Baker, a lawyer who is in favor of measures to cool the market, even though she owns a home here. “And that is a very significant problem.”
尽管在温哥华拥有一栋房子,但律师娜塔莉·贝克尔(Nathalie Baker)依然赞同采取措施冷却市场。她说:“在温哥华生活和工作的人却不能居住在这里,这是一个非常严重的问题。”

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