到了现在，大家都了解这个套路了。政策制定者们调查中国房地产市场，然后发表一些听上去很坚定的言论，表示要抑制楼价的“急剧”上涨。接着，相关数据出炉（如本周三公布的数据），显示住宅和商业房地产价格快速上涨——3月份同比涨幅达到创纪录的11.7%。随后是更多的指手画脚。周三晚些时候，中国国务院宣称将“坚决遏制房价过快上涨”。
与认真的行动相比，中国政府更喜欢用言论抑制楼价，这并不令人奇怪。中国经济一个最明显的“秘密”是，地方政府依赖兴旺的房地产市场——北京的中央政府则是通过地方政府依赖着兴旺的房地产市场。土地销售（更准确地说是长期租用）去年飙升逾40%，达到1.4万亿元人民币的财政收入。与此同时，周四发布的第一季度国内生产总值(GDP)数据显示，房地产投资同比增长35%，是对整体增长贡献最大的因素。除了价格外，交易量和投资在3月份都显著上扬，而此前结束的全国人大年会并未出台任何有关房地产的新政策。
公平地说，要约束这个巨大而分散化的市场很是棘手：国有的万科(China Vanke)是总数估计达6.4万家开发商中规模最大的，但它的市场份额也只有2%。而且，人们对2008年的激烈回调记忆犹新。当时，北京方面限制银行向房地产开发商放贷，引发人们担忧这些开发商的生存能力，并导致价格疲软，销售和建筑活动大幅减速。这就是为什么这一次的微调主要是在需求方面，包括周四上调首付比例和二套房贷款利率的举措。
目前急需更加有力的手段，包括提高基准利率，或许还包括对购房征税。毕竟，只要国家愿意，它是能够有效踩下刹车的：从2月到3月，银行新增贷款下降近五分之一。但就目前而言，购房者和开发商显然都不相信北京方面会切断自己的财路。
Lex专栏是由FT评论员联合撰写的短评，对全球经济与商业进行精辟分析
译者/和风
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001032230
We know the drill by now. Policymakers survey the Chinese property market, then make some determined-sounding noises about controlling “precipitous” rises in prices. Data then emerges, as on Wednesday this week, suggesting residential and commercial real-estate prices are shooting up fast – they climbed a record 11.7 per cent in March from a year earlier. Cue more finger-wagging. Later that day, the State Council threatened to “resolutely” curb “excessive” gains.
It is no surprise that China prefers talk to serious action. It is the economy's worst-kept secret that local governments, and Beijing through them, depend on a vibrant property market. Land sales (or more accurately, long-term leasing) jumped more than 40 per cent last year to hit Rmb1,400bn in fiscal revenues. First-quarter gross domestic product data on Thursday, meanwhile, showed that property investment, up 35 per cent year-on-year, was the biggest contributor to growth. In addition to prices, transaction volumes and investment picked up significantly in March – right after the National People's Congress dissolved without any new policies on property.
In fairness, restraining this vast and fragmented market is tough: state-owned China Vanke, the biggest of an estimated 64,000 developers, has a 2 per cent market share. And memories of the violent correction of 2008 are still fresh. Then, Beijing restricted bank lending to developers, triggering concerns over their viability, price weakness, and a big slowdown in sales and construction activity. That is why fine-tuning, this time, has been mostly on the demand side – including Thursday's move to lift downpayments and second-home loan rates.
Blunter instruments – including higher benchmark rates, and perhaps a tax on home purchases – are sorely needed. The state, after all, can be an effective brake when it wants to be: new renminbi bank loans fell by almost a fifth from February to March. At the moment, however, it is all too obvious that homebuyers and developers do not believe Beijing will bite the hand that feeds it.
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