中國買家進軍紐約布魯克林

Back in 2007, when I was relocating from London to New York, I bid against a Brazilian and a German for my Brooklyn brownstone. I thought that would be the high-water mark for international buyers interested in fixer-up properties a good 45 minutes from midtown Manhattan, but I was wrong.

2007年，我從倫敦搬到紐約的時候，曾與一個巴西人和一個德國人競價購買我在布魯克林的這套赤褐色砂石住宅。我當時以爲，國際買家對距離曼哈頓市中心45分鐘路程的陳舊住宅感興趣的高點也不過如此了，然而我錯了。

These days, I regularly wake to leaflets from Chinese property developers dumped on my front stoop, offering to buy homes for cash. And this even after Beijing has put various restrictions on the outflow of capital, in an attempt to prop up its currency.

最近，早上起來後，我經常發現門廊上有中國房地產開發商丟下的傳單，表示願以現金購房。這還是在北京方面爲支撐本幣，對資本外流施加了各種限制的情況下。

Foreign money has always played a huge role in luxury property markets like Manhattan and London. While international buyers in New York tend to come and go depending on the strength of the dollar relative to their local currency, veteran appraiser Jonathan Miller, the president and chief executive of Miller Samuel, tells me that foreign buyers over the past few years have come to represent a baseline 15 per cent of the Manhattan luxury market.

外國資金在曼哈頓和倫敦等豪宅市場一直扮演着重要角色。在紐約，雖然國際買家往往隨着美元兌他們本國貨幣匯率的相對強弱而時來時走，但Miller Samuel的總裁兼首席執行官、資深估價師喬納森?米勒(Jonathan Miller)告訴我，過去幾年外國買家佔了曼哈頓豪宅市場的15%（基線值）。

What is new is that they are expanding into border neighbourhoods such as Brooklyn, where town houses typically sell for about a third of what they might in prime NYC, and the foreign money — particularly the Chinese money — is staying, regardless of how strong or weak the dollar is. “Even when the dollar began to rise in 2015, the Chinese didn’t leave — they are just moving to Brooklyn, or Houston, or other second cities, and they are buying cheaper properties with more potential upside,” says Mr Miller.

一個新趨勢是，他們正向布魯克林這樣的邊緣社區擴展，布魯克林的聯體別墅(town house)售價通常相當於紐約中心地段的約三分之一，而無論美元如何走強或疲軟，外國資金——尤其是中國資金——都不挪地。米勒說：“即使在2015年美元開始上漲時，中國人也沒有離開，他們只是搬到了布魯克林，或休斯頓，或其他二線城市，而且他們還在購買更便宜的、有更大升值潛力的房產。”

Part of that shift may be related to the fact that early last year the US Treasury began investigating limited liability companies from abroad that were buying properties worth $3m or more in Manhattan and $1m or more in Miami, in an effort to stem money laundering by dicey billionaires.

這一轉變部分可能關係到去年年初的一件事，當時美國財政部開始調查在曼哈頓購買總價達到或超過300萬美元的房地產，在邁阿密購買總價達到或超過100萬美元的房地產的外國有限責任公司，以阻止可疑的億萬富翁進行洗錢行爲。

Yet the money keeps flowing in, and 2016 was a record year for Chinese foreign direct investment into the US — the two most popular sectors being technology (witness Baidu’s latest Silicon Valley expansion plans) and property.

然而資金仍不斷流入，2016年中國對美國直接投資更是創下紀錄，最受歡迎的兩大領域分別是科技——看看百度(Baidu)在硅谷的最新擴張計劃——和房地產。

Like the Japanese purchase of Rockefeller Center in the late 1980s, the Chinese purchase of the Waldorf Astoria in 2014 has become a cultural marker for the trend. It is worth noting that technology and commercial real estate (which has also seen big inflows of Chinese money) are two of the frothiest sectors in the US at the moment.

就像日本人在上世紀80年代末買下洛克菲勒中心(Rockefeller Center)一樣，中國人在2014年買下華爾道夫酒店(Waldorf Astoria)已成爲這一趨勢的文化標誌。值得注意的是，科技和商業房地產——也有中國資金大量流入——也是目前美國泡沫化最嚴重的兩個行業。

All this tells us several important things about the global economy. First, the extent to which world property markets have become totally disconnected from national economies. There has been a massive housing recovery in the US since 2008, but over half of all the gains have accrued to a handful of coastal and wealthy inland markets. Most middle-class Americans keep the majority of their wealth in housing, yet few have seen the kinds of appreciation enjoyed by wealthy homeowners in New York or San Francisco. Just as multinational companies fly 35,000ft over the concerns of national populations, so do coastal elites — and both trends are fuelling political discontent.

上述一切告訴了我們關於全球經濟的幾件重要事情。首先，這一切反映了全球各房地產市場已與各自所屬國家經濟完全脫節。自2008年以來，美國房地產市場大規模復甦，但其中一半以上增長歸於少數幾個沿海市場及富有的內陸市場。大多數美國中產階層將他們的絕大部分財富投入到房地產，但很少有人見過紐約或舊金山富裕房主所享有的升值。正如跨國公司飄在在3.5萬英尺的高空上，遠離全美民衆的擔憂，沿海地區精英也是如此，而這兩大趨勢都激化了政治上的不滿。

Second, it reflects the extent to which China’s wealthy are worried about the economic trajectory of their own country. Whether the renminbi is strong or weak, Chinese money keeps pouring into New York or Miami (or London, or Vancouver). This hints at two things — first, there is still a tremendous amount of worry among rich Chinese about the political and economic future of the Middle Kingdom. Second, like everything in China, the amount of capital that might yet flow out of the country is massive. “We’re not seeing just oligarchs and billionaires buying these days,” says Mr Miller, “but your garden-variety millionaires who want a house in Brooklyn rather than a luxury condo in Manhattan.”

第二，它反映了中國富豪對本國經濟運行軌跡的擔心程度。不管人民幣是強是弱，中國的資本都在不斷涌入紐約或邁阿密（或倫敦、或溫哥華）。這暗示了兩點：首先，中國富豪對這個中央王國(Middle Kingdom)的政治和經濟未來仍存在巨大擔憂。第二，就像中國的所有事一樣，想要流向國外但還未流出的資本量是龐大的。米勒說：“這些天我們不止看到寡頭和億萬富豪在買房，我們還看到大量普通百萬富翁想在布魯克林買套獨棟別墅，而不是在曼哈頓買套豪華共管公寓(condo)。”

As economists such as Joseph Stiglitz have been saying for years, and as the International Monetary Fund has recently begun to admit, a globalised financial system presents major risk for national economies, which have more and more trouble controlling conditions in their local markets.

正如約瑟夫?斯蒂格利茨(Joseph Stiglitz)等經濟學家多年來所說，國際貨幣基金組織(IMF)最近也開始承認的，全球化金融體系給各國經濟帶來了重大風險，各國在控制自己的本土市場方面遇到越來越多的麻煩。

Normal people (even professionals) in London, Vancouver — and increasingly Brooklyn — cannot afford to get on to the property ladder. The lights are out in Mayfair and areas of Manhattan at night, as apartments purchased as part of an asset portfolio by global elites stand empty. This, of course, adds fuel to the fire of nationalism and populism, the results of which can be seen in Brexit and the rise of polarised politics in the US and Europe.

在倫敦、溫哥華，普通百姓（甚至是專業人士）買不起房，在布魯克林也日益是這種情況。在倫敦的梅費爾和紐約曼哈頓部分區域，入夜後沒有亮起燈光，因爲全球精英當作資產配置一部分所購買的公寓無人居住。這當然也撥旺了民族主義和民粹主義的火焰，其結果已體現爲英國脫歐，以及政治分化在美國和歐洲擡頭。

It also underscores the bizarre nature of the backlash against globalisation. If you consider all the pillars of neoliberalism (including the free flow of goods, people and capital) currently under scrutiny, it’s the movement of money globally that has taken the least heat. Yet its effects are powerful. My Brooklyn neighbourhood, which 15 years ago was still populated by cops and firefighters, is now home to McKinsey consultants and famous English actors (and perhaps, soon, a millionaire or two from Wuhan or Chongqing).

這也凸顯出反全球化浪潮的古怪性。如果你看一看目前遭受拷問的的新自由主義的所有支柱——包括商品、人力和資本的自由流動，對全球資本流動的拷問最輕，但全球資本流動的作用力是強大的。15年前，我在布魯克林住的那個社區裏大多還是警察和消防隊員，現在那裏住着麥肯錫(McKinsey)顧問和著名英國演員，或許很快還會有一兩位來自武漢或重慶的百萬富翁。

You can see the wealth effect, as boutiques selling $500 pairs of shoes and $30 slices of cheese open up. But I wonder if the lights will stay on — and what it will mean for our politics if they do not.

隨着一雙鞋子500美元、一片奶酪30美元的高檔店鋪相繼開業，你可以看到財富的作用。但我好奇的是，入夜後燈光是否還會亮起？如果不會，這對我們的政治將意味着什麼？