【英语中国】Lex专栏：慎入香港楼市

Anyone who bought into Hong Kong’s big property developers five years ago would have suffered sleepless nights at first – then enjoyed a stunning boom. The territory is both pegged to cheap US credit and geared to China’s growth. But if the era of an ultra-easy Federal Reserve ends, is China’s stabilising growth enough to support the developers’ shares?

Property has a very prominent place in the Chinese territory. Nine of the world’s top 10 listed developers by market capitalisation are Asian, according to S&P Capital IQ. Half of their net assets sit with Hong Kong’s biggest – Sun Hung Kai, Cheung Kong, Wharf Holdings and Swire Pacific. In few other places might one find the main power utilities holding a stake in a landmark development and the metro operator making more than half its money from developing and managing property. Over the past five years, total returns on the Hang Seng property index have averaged more than 12 per cent a year – twice those of its US equivalent.

Talk of a bubble is now common. Residential prices had doubled in five years, yet are now off 3 per cent from this year’s peak. Measures such as raising stamp duty and imposing borrowing limits were cooling things even before the worries about tighter US policy arose. Prices are expected to slide further this year as mainland Chinese buyers step back. But there is another side to China’s interest in Hong Kong property – its shops. Wharf Holdings last month reported a 17 per cent rise in operating profits from its Harbour City mall, a haunt for mainland shoppers.

So buy retail landlords, sell home developers? It is not so simple. The big players do both and have interests in China, too. Still, their hearts are in Hong Kong, a market based on price gains, not yield – many investment properties are not even rented out. That makes for a choppy market ahead. The developers will face turbulence too. This is not a good time to get into the Hong Kong property market – in any form.

任何一个在5年前买入香港大型房地产开发商股票的人，起初都会辗转难眠，而后则会享受一轮令人艳羡的涨势。香港既与美国廉价信贷挂钩，又与中国内地增长紧密相连。但如果美联储(Fed)的超宽松政策时代结束，中国正在企稳的经济增长是否足以支撑这些开发商的股价？

房地产在这个中国特别行政区享有非常突出的地位。根据标普资本智商(S&P Capital IQ)的数据，全球市值最高的10家上市房地产开发商中，有9家为亚洲企业。其中一半的净资产由香港大型房地产开发商——新鸿基(Sun Hung Kai)、长江集团(Cheung Kong)、九龙仓(Wharf Holdings)和太古股份(Swire Pacific)——拥有。其他地方很难找到这样的情况：主要电力企业持有一个地标性开发项目的股份，或者地铁运营商超过一半的收入来自开发和管理地产。过去5年里，恒生房地产指数每年的回报率平均超过12%，为美国同类指数的两倍。

如今人们纷纷谈论泡沫。住宅价格5年来涨了一倍，但已从今年的峰值回落3%。早在美国收紧政策引发担忧之前，香港便已采取上调印花税和设置借贷限额等“降温”措施。预计随着中国内地买主退出，香港住宅价格预计将进一步下滑。但中国内地对香港房地产的兴趣还表现在另外一面——商铺。九龙仓上月报告，其颇受内地购物客欢迎的海港城(Harbour City)购物中心的营业利润增长17%。

所以，是否应该买入商铺开发商的股票，抛出住宅开发商的股票？事情没这么简单。大投资者往往双管齐下，并且在中国内地也有投资。可话说回来，他们的心思仍在香港这个以价格涨幅而非收益率为基础的市场——许多投资地产甚至没有被租出。这意味着市场将出现动荡。开发商也将面临颠簸。现在可不是进入香港房地产市场的好时机——不管以何种形式。

Lex专栏是由FT评论家联合撰写的短评，对全球经济与商业进行精辟分析

译者/梁艳裳、徐天辰