In the video “The Casualties in China’s Economy,” also available in Chinese, Jonah M. Kessel reports on the social pressure that young people face to buy an apartment of their own, and what happens when those investments go wrong. Below, he describes the plight of those whose dreams of home ownership have gone awry.
在《中国的房地产经济》(The Casualties in China’s Economy)这段视频中，乔纳·M·卡塞尔(Jonah M. Kessel)对年轻人面临的买房压力，以及投资失误的后果进行了报道。他讲述了那些买房梦破灭的人所处的困境。
On the fourth floor of an unfinished apartment building in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, a man stands guard, looking down on the courtyard of the complex where he had thought his future home would be. It is his turn to keep an eye out for the developers who are said to have abandoned the project.
在中国东部城市杭州，一名男子在一座烂尾楼的四楼守卫着，俯视着小区的院子。他原以为这里就是未来的家，现在他却需要提防据称已经放弃该项目的开发商。He and the other would-be residents take shifts guarding the area, sleeping in tents and in makeshift rooms. They are defending their protest signs, which they say the developers will tear down if they do not remain vigilant.
他和其他未来的住户轮流守卫这片区域，他们睡在帐篷和临时整理出的房间里。他们这么做是为了保护自己的抗议标语。他们表示，如果不保持警惕，开发商就会撕毁这些标语。
“I bleed, I cry,” reads one banner, which is three stories high. “Give back my home, give back my money,” reads e occupying the space say that nearly 600 families had paid cash advances for apartments at the Xixi Moho complex. But then, they say, the developer sold their shares to another developer, who then sold the property to yet another. The building was never completed, and the families are now trapped in a state of residential and economic limbo.
一条三层楼高的竖幅标语写道，“我流血，我落泪。”另一条标语则写道，“还我房，还我钱。”驻守在这里的人表示，约有600户人家支付了现金，预购西溪Moho的公寓。但他们说，开发商后来将这个项目卖给了另一个开发商，后者又接着卖给了第三个开发商。公寓没有建完。现在，业主的房子没了，购房款也没了。“Many customers who borrowed money from banks are in trouble,” said Liu Cheng, an unemployed entrepreneur who invested in the project. “If they stop paying off their loan, they will bear legal responsibility from the bank. But what if they keep paying it? They still won’t get an apartment in the foreseeable future.”
“现在很多通过银行贷款的业主很苦恼，”同样对该项目进行了投资，目前处于无业状态的企业家刘诚说。“一方面，他们如果断供的话，他们要承担银行方面的法律责任。但是如果继续交呢，这个房子遥遥无期。”Mr. Liu said he invested in the property development because the price seemed reasonable.
刘诚说，他之所以投资这个房地产开发项目，是因为价格似乎比较合理。“But in the end, we lose both the apartment and our money,” he said. “And now? No one is taking responsibility.”
“后果就是，我们的业主购房款没有了，房子也没有了，”他说。“事情到这里就变成了没有人负责的一个局面。”The situation at Xixi Moho is not uncommon in the area, the protesters say. Or elsewhere in China.
抗议者说，在这里，像西溪Moho这样的情况并不少见。中国其他地方也是如此。Many real estate developers have financed projects by selling the bulk of the apartments before construction, borrowing from banks and then selling the rest of the apartments during construction. This works well when prices are rising, and it allows developers to earn huge rates of return on their investments.
许多地产开发商会在施工前出售大量公寓并从银行贷款，从而为工程筹集资金，然后再在施工期间出售剩下的公寓。当房价上涨时，这样做很有效，而且开发商也能因此获得极高的投资回报。But the system breaks down when prices fall. After years of steady increases in housing values, prices have begun to decline, and some developers have run out of money before finishing the projects.
但房价下跌时，这个体系就会崩溃。房价经过多年的稳步提高，现在开始下降，有些开发商在工程竣工前就没钱了。Real estate projects accounted for 12.8 percent of China’s economic activity in October, according to the International Monetary Fund. If related activities such as making steel for beams or manufacturing sinks for bathrooms are included, that figure jumps to 33 percent. This means that even small price drops in the real estate sector can have considerable economic implications.
国际货币基金组织(International Monetary Fund)估计，今年10月，房地产项目在中国经济活动中占12.8％。如果把相关活动计算在内——如锻造房梁所使用的钢材、制造浴室使用的水槽——这个比例则会提高到33%。这意味着，哪怕房地产的价格出现轻微下跌，都会对经济造成相当大的影响。