House prices in China’s leading cities surged as much as 63 per cent in the year to March while lower-tier cities saw prices tumble, highlighting the country’s increasingly bifurcated market.

今年第一季度，中国一线城市房价飙升，最高涨幅高达63%，二、三线城市房价却出现下跌，凸显中国房地产市场分化加深。

In places such as Shanghai and Shenzhen, soaring home prices and subdued wage growth have sparked a frenzy of borrowing — estimated at an additional $48bn in January alone — prompting city governments, wary of a repeat of the US subprime crisis, to crack down.

在上海、深圳等城市，房价飙升和薪资上涨低迷引发了贷款狂潮，估计仅今年1月新增贷款就达480亿美元。各城市政府担心重蹈美国次贷危机，纷纷出台抑制政策。

These measures, introduced in January and including curbs on financing for downpayments and second homes, have had little impact so far in the “tier-one” cities. Year-on-year price rises in March were as much as 63 per cent in Shenzhen and 30 per cent in Shanghai, according to the National Bureau of Statistics’ monthly 70-city property price survey.

这些措施包括限制首付及二套房的贷款，但它们从1月出台至今，对一线城市影响不大。中国国家统计局对70个大中城市房地产价格月度调查显示，3月深圳房地产价格同比上涨近63%，上海同比涨幅30%。

“The [nationwide] rate of increase in prices of new and existing residential buildings has significantly accelerated from the previous month, by 0.6 and 1.2 percentage points respectively,” wrote Liu Jianwei, an NBS statistician.

国家统计局统计师刘建伟在报告中写道：“70个大中城市新建商品住宅和二手住宅价格环比综合平均涨幅均明显扩大，分别比上月扩大0.6和1.2个百分点。”

New mortgage borrowing increased 60 per cent in the first quarter year-on-year, according to Faye Gao, analyst at Bernstein Research. The research house estimates new lending reached Rmb313bn ($48bn) in March, second only to this January over the past five years.

伯恩斯坦研究公司(Bernstein Research)分析师Faye Gao表示，今年一季度中国新增按揭贷款同比上升60%。该研究机构估计3月新增贷款达到3130亿元人民币（合480亿美元），过去5年单月增幅排行第二，仅次于今年1月。

The main reason for the uncontrolled price rises is the monetary easing of the past two years, according to Rosealea Yao of Gavekal Dragonomics, a research group. The People’s Bank of China has been cutting its benchmark interest rates since 2012, making mortgage-lending cheaper.

研究机构龙洲经讯(Gavekal Dragonomics)的咬丽蔷(Rosealea Yao)认为，房价上涨失控的主要原因是过去两年的货币宽松政策。中国央行(People’s Bank of China)从2012年起一直在下调基准利率，令按揭贷款越来越便宜。

“When you create a lot of liquidity, it flows to the hottest markets,” said Ms Yao, who suspects easy credit and property speculation have stoked sharp price rises.

咬丽蔷表示：“当你创造了大量流动性，它就会流向最热的市场”。她猜测宽松的信贷和房地产投机引发了房价大幅上涨。

Homebuyers have circumvented clampdowns on downpayment financing, which prohibit use of peer-to-peer lending among other funding sources, by finding ever more novel ways to obtain the 20 per cent of value deposit requirement.

购房者找到了越来越新颖的方式来支付20%的首付，规避了对首付贷款的抑制政策，这些政策禁止使用个人对个人(P2P)等贷款渠道。

Last month Securities Daily, a Chinese newspaper, reported on one homebuyer in Shenzhen using 20 credit cards to borrow the money for his downpayment.

据《证券日报》(Securities Daily)上月报道，深圳一名购房者用20张信用卡借到了首付所需费用。

Among other tier one cities, prices in Beijing were up 28 per cent year-on-year for existing homes and 18 per cent for new builds.

北京二手住宅价格同比上涨28%，新建商品住宅同比上涨18%。

By contrast, prices in less desirable “tier-three” cities such as Dandong and Jinzhou, down 3-4 per cent, were depressed by build-up of unsold stock.

而丹东、锦州等“三线”城市受积压楼盘影响，房价同比下降3-4%。

“The authorities now face a difficult task of taming the red-hot markets of first-tier cities and some second-tier cities, while continuing to support lower-tier cities,” James MacDonald, director of China Research at Savills Property Services, wrote in a note.

第一太平戴维斯物业顾问(Savills Property Services)中国区主管詹姆斯•麦克唐纳(James MacDonald)在报告中写道：“有关部门现在面临着一项艰巨任务，既要抑制一线城市和部分二线城市过热的市场，还要继续支持二三线城市的房地产市场。”