海南地产：泡沫的轮回？

在从官塘通往海南省会海口的道路两旁，矗立着一些广告牌。或许有那么一天，它们将成为地产热的墓志铭——过去几年里，这个热带海岛经历了的一股房地产热潮。有个广告牌上写着，“每平米7980元人民币（合1231美元）——无须任何理由便可退款。”

开发商向购房人承诺无条件退款的策略或许不同寻常，但附近一个建有一所医院、冷冷清清的小镇，向人们昭示了在这个地区找到买家有多么困难。

海口的一位地产中介王丽（音译）解释道，该市的潜在买主和开发商陷入了僵持。“想买房的客户少之又少……每平米价格高达1.1万-1.2万元人民币。现在是有价无市，但开发商们仍在捂盘，”王丽说。

与此同时，二手房市场也已陷入了停滞。海南三亚市一家高尔夫度假村的经理雷蒙德(Raymond Hau)表示，他手下一位员工把自己一套100平方米的公寓挂到市场待售快一年了。她买入时价格是45万元人民币，几年之后的今天，同样大小的房子名义价格已升至180万元人民币，可她没有接到过“一位有兴趣的买主的电话”。

“每周都有新房产入市。为什么要买二手房呢？在中国，二手房没有多大市场，”雷蒙德表示。

海南大学的学者王毅武认为，海南房地产市场——官方数据显示，2010年海南平均房价达到了全国第四的创纪录高位——还没有成为泡沫，但他也承认其中存在问题。二手房市场不够活跃，他表示，这是因为卖家的报价过高。中国国务院2009年12月出台了相关法令，大意是要把海南建设成为中国的国际旅游岛 ——使得存在泡沫的市场变得狂热；在消息公布后的两周内，海南房价猛涨了30%。

王毅武教授目前估计，三亚等地的房产空置率高达70%。

对海南当地居民来说，这一幕再熟悉不过。上世纪80年代末，大批资金涌入海南。1988年时，商业地产每平米价格不过1350元人民币，1993年便飙升到了7500元人民币。

但是，到了1993年6月，在中国前总理朱镕基叫停房地产公司上市、国务院宣布减少对房地产行业贷款的措施之后，海南的房地产价格出现了崩盘。

而这一次，王丽表示，“并没有许多房主急于把房子出手”。

对于许多中国富人（尤其是来自北方冬季苦寒省份的富人）来说，在有着“中国里维埃拉”之称的海南拥有第二套房产，其吸引力是可以理解的。地产中介们认为，这将在市场出现低迷时起到缓冲作用。麻烦在于，随着三亚房价冲高至每平米25942元人民币，没有多少当地人能买得起海南的房子。

现年30岁、来自新疆的张媛（音译）表示，2009年自己在海口的公寓涨到100万元人民币时，她真应该把它卖掉。眼下那套房子的价格跌到了60万元人民币。她说，自己的一位同事选准了时机，在2009年底至2010年初脱手了多套房子，现在他很有钱，正打算向国外移民。

在鸿洲国际游艇会(Visun Royal Yacht Club)——一个建有船坞的大型地产项目，营销经理承认，许多泊位还在闲置着。不过，几艘欧洲制造的大型豪华游艇赫然耸立在遍布水面的渔船之间。

由于政府正收紧房地产贷款政策，这位经理表示，豪华游艇价格一飞冲天只是迟早的事情。

On the road from Guantang to Haikou, the provincial capital of Hainan, stand advertising hoardings that might one day serve as an epitaph for the property mania that the tropical island has witnessed in the past couple of years. “Flats for Rmb7,980 [$1,231] per square metre – refunds [available] without giving any reason,” one says.

This tactic of a developer offering buyers their money back without conditions may be unusual, but a nearby mini-township, complete with a hospital, that is deserted offers a clue to how hard it is to find buyers in this area.

Wang Li, a property agent in Haikou, explains that potential buyers and developers are involved in a standoff in the city. “There are very few clients who want to buy . . . at the high rate of Rmb11,000 to Rmb12,000 per sq m. There is no market, but developers hold on to their stock of flats,” Ms Wang says.

The secondary market, meanwhile, has slowed to a standstill. Raymond Hau, the manager of a golf resort in Sanya, the town with the best beaches on the island, says he has an employee who has had her 100 sq m apartment on the market for almost a year. The notional price of flats that size has escalated in the couple of years she has owned it from Rmb450,000 to Rmb1.8m but she has not received “even a single phone call” from a prospective buyer.

“There are new buildings coming up every week. Why buy an old one? There is no secondary market in China,” Mr Hau declares.

Wang Yiwu, an academic at Hainan University, feels the island’s property market – in 2010 it recorded the fourth-highest average house price in the country according to official data – is not a bubble yet but he admits it has problems. The secondary market is inactive, he says, because sellers set the price too high. China’s state council’s edict in December 2009 to the effect that Hainan would be the country’s international tourism island turned a frothy market into a frenzied one; prices surged 30 per cent within two weeks of that announcement.

Prof Wang now estimates that in places like Sanya there are developments with vacancy rates of 70 per cent.

For Hainan residents this is all too familiar. Money poured into the island in the late 1980s. Commercial real estate went from Rmb1,350 per sq m in 1988 to Rmb7,500 in 1993.

However, in June 1993, after former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji called for a halt to the listing of property companies and the state council announced measures to reduce loans to the sector, Hainan’s property prices crashed.

This time around, says Ms Wang, “not many homeowners are running to sell”.

For many wealthy Chinese, especially those from northern provinces with their harsh winters, the appeal of a second home in what has been called China’s riviera is understandable. Agents believe this will provide a cushion in the event of a downturn. The trouble is that few locals can afford to buy in Hainan as values have risen to as high as Rmb25,942 per sq m in Sanya.

Zhang Yuan, a 30-year-old from Xinjiang, believes she should have sold her flat in Haikou in 2009 when the price hit Rmb1m. Now, it is down to Rmb600,000. A colleague who timed his exit perfectly by selling a number of flats in late 2009 and early 2010 is now so rich he is planning to emigrate from China, she says.

At the Visun Royal Yacht Club, a vast property development with a marina attached, the marketing manager admits many of the berths are vacant. Still, several huge luxury yachts made in Europe loom over the fishermen’s boats across the water.

Now that the government is making it harder to raise loans for purchases of property, the manager says, it is only a matter of time before the price of luxury yachts will soar.

In Hainan, it seems the wealthy have an inalienable right to speculate and there is always an alternative asset class waiting for its turn in the sun.