Finance and Economics; Canada's housing market; Time for a bigger needle; The latest attempt to prick a bubble;
財(cái)經(jīng)；加拿大的住宅市場；該出手時(shí)就出手；戳破泡沫的最新舉措；
Canada's reputation for financial regulation is starry. Its banks got through the crisis unscathed. According to Moody's, a ratings agency, Royal Bank of Canada sits alongside HSBC and JPMorgan Chase in the top tier of global banks. And Canadian policymakers are old hands at pulling “macroprudential” levers of the sort now in vogue among rich-world central banks.
加拿大的金融監(jiān)管一向廣受贊譽(yù)。它的銀行業(yè)在這場危機(jī)中做到了獨(dú)善其身。根據(jù)評級機(jī)構(gòu)穆迪的報(bào)告，加拿大皇家銀行與匯豐銀行以及摩根大通同列，躋身全球銀行界的第一梯隊(duì)。同時(shí)，加拿大的政策制定者也是運(yùn)用宏觀審慎政策的老手，這一政策如今也常被其他富國的央行使用。
But questions still nag. Some say that Canada's banks are flattered by a huge indemnity offered by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp (CMHC), a public institution that insures mortgages with a loan-to-value ratio of more than 80%. CHMC's book grew to 567 billion Canadian Dollar(557 billion Dollar) in 2011, up from 345 billion Canadian Dollar four years earlier. And Canada's housing market looks very frothy on some measures: The Economist's analysis of price-to-rent ratios suggests that Canadian properties were about 75% above their long-run “fair value” in the first quarter of 2012 (see chart). Although less than 0.5% of CHMC's mortgages are in arrears, such exuberance is a worry. The central bank recently labelled housing as “the most important domestic risk to financial stability in Canada”.
但是，仍有問題纏身。部分人士認(rèn)為，加拿大的銀行被加拿大抵押和住房公司（CMHC）提供的巨額補(bǔ)償金美化了，CMHC是一家為貸款估值比率超過80%的抵押貸款提供保險(xiǎn)的公共機(jī)構(gòu)。在2011年，CHMC的抵押貸款額從四年前的3450億增長到了5670億加元（合5570億美元）。并且，從一些指標(biāo)來看，加拿大的房地產(chǎn)充斥著泡沫：《經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)人》以房價(jià)租金比所做的分析顯示，在2012年第一季度，加拿大的物業(yè)價(jià)格高出它們的長期公允價(jià)值75%。縱然僅有低于0.5%的CHMC抵押貸款存在拖欠的情況，但這樣的繁榮仍讓人憂慮。最近，央行也冠以樓市 “危及加拿大金融穩(wěn)定性的最大國內(nèi)隱患”。
Repeated efforts by policymakers to take the heat out of housing have not had a noticeable effect. So on June 21st Jim Flaherty, the finance minister, had another go, his fourth in four years. Some of the new measures were cosmetic. Buyers of homes worth more than 1m Dollar have been able to get mortgage-default insurance from CMHC with a downpayment of only 5%. In practice, it is hard to find buyers in this bracket who do not have lots of equity in their homes. But after July 9th mortgages for homes of this value will not be eligible for CMHC coverage.
政策制定者們給樓市降溫的不斷嘗試并無明顯成效。于是，在6月21日，加拿大財(cái)長吉姆·費(fèi)拉逖，在四年來第四次出臺了一些新舉措。新措施中的一些不過是表面功夫。價(jià)值過百萬美元住宅的買主能得到由CMHC擔(dān)保的債務(wù)違約保險(xiǎn)以及首付僅付5%的優(yōu)惠待遇。而事實(shí)上，很少有這類購房者在購房時(shí)不以大量自有資金支付價(jià)款的。不過，在6月9日之后，這類住宅將不再適用于CMHC的保險(xiǎn)范圍。
Other measures have more teeth. The maximum amortisation period for a mortgage will now be 25 years, down from 30. That should hurt demand: last year about 40% of new mortgages were for terms longer than that. Refinancing a home will be allowed only up to 80% of its value, down from 85%. Homebuyers will have to demonstrate their housing costs are no more than 39% of their gross household income. On top of Mr Flaherty's measures, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, Canada's banking regulator, slapped a loan-to-value limit of 65% on borrowing against home equity.
其他那些則更為有力。抵押貸款最長還貸期限如今將從30年降低至25年。這勢必將減少需求：去年約有40%的新貸款的期限是超過25年的。允許的房屋再融資的上限從房屋價(jià)值的85%降至只有80%。購房者還須證明他們的住房支出不超過家庭總收入的39%。費(fèi)拉逖的舉措中，緊隨其后的是，加拿大的銀行監(jiān)管部門，聯(lián)邦金融機(jī)構(gòu)監(jiān)督辦公室，將貸款和自有資金間的貸款估值比率的限制猛降至65%。
Craig Alexander, the chief economist for TD Financial Group, estimates all this will be the equivalent of about a 1% rise in mortgage rates for most homebuyers. He believes that will produce a slow unwinding of the housing market. If he is right, and Mr Flaherty's various interventions avoid the collateral damage that would be caused by an actual interest-rate rise, Canada's admirers will have another thing to swoon over.
多倫多道明銀行金融集團(tuán)首席經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家，克雷格·亞歷山大估計(jì)，所有這些措施對于購房者而言將等同于抵押貸款利率上升1%。他認(rèn)為這將促使房產(chǎn)市場緩慢回歸。如果他的觀點(diǎn)正確，并且費(fèi)拉逖的各種干預(yù)手段能夠避免可能引發(fā)實(shí)際利率上升的附帶傷害，那么如此一來，加拿大的崇拜者們又將有一個(gè)可以津津樂道的話題了。
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