美国这一波房价暴涨，有哪些炒房客在推波助澜？
如果你在美国，而且你恰好有套房，那么在过去两年中，你八成没少受到炒房客的电子邮件、电话和短信轰炸。他们的中心思想就一句：你的房卖吗？
自新冠疫情爆发以来，美国的住房市场迎来了一波神奇的热潮，大量投资者被吸引到了房市上。这其中既有家庭刚需者，也有买房做民宿者。还有的人专买旧房，翻修后出手赚差价。就连黑石集团（Blackstone）这样的华尔街巨头和Opendoor Technologies这样的科技公司也在大肆炒房。低按揭、贷款容易、房价升值快这几个因素结合在一起，让投资者很难抗拒房市的诱惑。
虽然在过去两年里，美国投资者纷纷涌入房市，但很多房地产业者却不愿意把房市的繁荣归功于炒房。在他们看来，造成这一轮房市繁荣的原因有很多。首先是历史性的低按揭利率，这是美联储（Federal Reserve）为了应对新冠疫情导致的经济衰退而采取的救市之举，不过它确实对各种买家都是有吸引力的。比如在新冠疫情期间，很多白领工作者进入居家办公模式，他们很有意愿放弃旧金山和波士顿等大城市贵得吓人的“老破小”，搬到博伊西和坦帕等城市买房安家。另外，2019年至2023年这五年，恰好也是90后集体“奔三”、进入买房高峰期的窗口期。因此需求的上涨完全盖了供给端。在新冠疫情爆发前，美国住房市场库存就已经呈下降趋势，新冠疫情以来更是降低至近40年来的最低水平。
尽管业界有人不愿意承认，但现在我们可以明显看出，投资性购房确实加速了美国房地产市场的繁荣，并且推高了美国房价。至少这是《财富》杂志在研究了Redfin、房地美（Freddie Mac）和哈佛大学住宅联合研究中心（Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies）近期发布的数据后所得出的结论。
哈佛大学住宅联合研究中心于上周发布的一份报告显示，2022年第一季度，投资性购房占了全美独房住宅销量的28%，创下历史纪录，这一比例远高于2021年第一季度的19%，也远高于2017年至2019年16%的平均水平。（为了进行分析，哈佛大学的研究人员使用了CoreLogic公司的房屋销售数据。）
哈佛大学的研究人员指出，投资性购房在美国南部和西部增长最为迅猛。这一发现也得到了Redfin公司的一项独立分析的支持。该分析是基于所有房型的销量数据进行的（而不像哈佛大学的分析只着眼于独户住宅），研究显示，2022年第一季度，投资性购房占到了亚特兰大房市销量的33.1%。紧随其后的是杰克森维尔（32.3%）、夏洛特（32.3%）、菲尼克斯（29.0%）和迈阿密（28.2%）。穆迪分析（Moody's Analytics）指出，这些城市也是全美房价“最被高估”的城市，也最有可能出现房价下跌。
虽然美国南部和西部地区的投资性购房活动最多，不过几乎每个美国主要城市的投资性购房活动都在增多。例如在Redfin追踪的31个大城市中，有29个城市的投资性购房活动都有所增加。光是在俄亥俄州，就有辛辛那提（+2.9%）、克利夫兰（+3.1%）和哥伦布（+7%）等城市的出现了投资性购房增多的情况。从2021年第一季度到2022年第一季度，只有西雅图（-0.5%）和密尔沃基（-0.1%）的投资性购房有所下降。
房地美的研究人员也在公开数据基础上进行了分析，不过从他们的研究结果看，投资性住房的增长幅度并没有哈佛大学和Redfin描绘的那么大。房地美发现，从2019年12月至2021年12月，美国的投资性购房从26.7%提高到了27.6%。不过房地美也承认，他们的分析并未充分覆盖投资者的“全现金”购房。
需要指出的是，在美国，参与投资性购房的绝大多数是中小投资者，比如民宿经营者，或者靠收租度日的富二代等等。根据哈佛大学的研究，2021年9月，有74%的投资性购房，是由名下房产少于100套的投资者购买的。其余26%则被名下房产多于100套的大买家拿下。
而这些大投资者的入局，也是导致炒房行为增多的重要原因之一。
哈佛大学的研究人员指出：“拥有大量房产（至少100套）的投资者在相当程度上推动了这一波增长。从2020年9月到2021年9月，这些大投资者的购房比例从14%增长至26%，几乎翻了一番。他们进军独户住宅市场后，潜在刚需群体，特别是首次购房者和收入有限者的可选择范围被进一步挤压了。”
这些大投资者都是谁？他们有的是大型租赁公司，例如全美最大的独户住宅租赁商Invitation Homes。在新冠疫情期间，它出手买了不少房子。创办该公司的黑石集团也在新冠疫情期间重返独户住宅市场。（2019年，黑石集团在出售了Invitation Homes的剩余股份后，退出了这项业务。）
新冠疫情以来的这一波房地产繁荣，也促进了线上购房市场的崛起。很多线上大买家——比如Opendoor、Offerpad、RedfinNow和Zillow Offers等，都会在全美各地四处询价，然后很快将吃下的房产重新投放到市场上。这种做法不像传统的旧房翻新重售模式，而更像是一种“走量”销售。在每笔交易中，这些公司都会向买家收取一定的“服务费”，作为迅速锁定交易的报酬。
随着住房市场的繁荣，房地产网站Zillow的营收也出现了飙升。2021年第一季度，它的利润达到了创纪录的5200万美元。信心大增的Zillow迅速进军“线上购房”市场，购房支出迅速占到其总收入的四分之三以上。只不过，Zillow的炒房神话最终在2021年秋天以爆雷告终。有分析师告诉《财富》杂志，Zillow的炒房爆雷与它的算法问题有关系。这个被吹爆的算法至少让Zillow给几千套房子多掏了不少钱。
不过，美国房市上的大多数投资者，都是一些你可能从未听说过的群体。像Opendoor和黑石集团这样的大玩家，实际上只吃掉了投资性购房市场上的一小块蛋糕。
房地美的研究人员本月早些时候曾经指出：“尽管大型机构投资者在市场上所占的份额正在迅速上升，而且很可能继续扩大，但它们的份额仍然很小，而且对整个市场的影响也并不大。”房地美的数据显示，在新冠疫情期间，“线上买房”和机构买家的交易份额大概只从1.5%提高到了4.5%左右。
在短短两年时间里，美国房价上涨了37%。这么大幅度的房价上涨，当然不可能归咎于任何一家公司。不过考虑到投资需求的上升，你会发现，投资性需求至少在某种程度上要为房价上涨负责。新冠疫情期间，大大小小的投资者的确抢占了更多的市场份额。而且炒房行为影响的不仅仅是房子本身。即便炒房者在竞价中处于劣势，他们的参与也给房价造成了上涨压力。
随着按揭利率加息已成定局，新冠疫情带来的房市过热也必将退烧。那么我们不禁要问：投资者大举涌入住房市场，这究竟只是新冠疫情期间的短期行为，还是预兆着一个长期趋势的开始？
现在，抵押贷款利率的飙升已经劝退了很多首次购房者。与此同时，一些炒房客也在退出市场。一旦炒房客要还的月供超过了租金，炒房就会变得不再划算。
Redfin的高级经济学家谢哈里·博哈里在本月发表的一份报告中写道：“投资性购房趋软的原因与市场整体趋软的原因相同，那就是利率飙升和房价高企导致按揭购房的成本变得过高。虽然将近四分之三的投资性购房都是用现金进行的，但投资者也会受到利率影响，因为他们通常是通过贷款获得现金的。”（财富中文网）
译者：朴成奎
如果你在美国，而且你恰好有套房，那么在过去两年中，你八成没少受到炒房客的电子邮件、电话和短信轰炸。他们的中心思想就一句：你的房卖吗？
自新冠疫情爆发以来，美国的住房市场迎来了一波神奇的热潮，大量投资者被吸引到了房市上。这其中既有家庭刚需者，也有买房做民宿者。还有的人专买旧房，翻修后出手赚差价。就连黑石集团（Blackstone）这样的华尔街巨头和Opendoor Technologies这样的科技公司也在大肆炒房。低按揭、贷款容易、房价升值快这几个因素结合在一起，让投资者很难抗拒房市的诱惑。
虽然在过去两年里，美国投资者纷纷涌入房市，但很多房地产业者却不愿意把房市的繁荣归功于炒房。在他们看来，造成这一轮房市繁荣的原因有很多。首先是历史性的低按揭利率，这是美联储（Federal Reserve）为了应对新冠疫情导致的经济衰退而采取的救市之举，不过它确实对各种买家都是有吸引力的。比如在新冠疫情期间，很多白领工作者进入居家办公模式，他们很有意愿放弃旧金山和波士顿等大城市贵得吓人的“老破小”，搬到博伊西和坦帕等城市买房安家。另外，2019年至2023年这五年，恰好也是90后集体“奔三”、进入买房高峰期的窗口期。因此需求的上涨完全盖了供给端。在新冠疫情爆发前，美国住房市场库存就已经呈下降趋势，新冠疫情以来更是降低至近40年来的最低水平。
尽管业界有人不愿意承认，但现在我们可以明显看出，投资性购房确实加速了美国房地产市场的繁荣，并且推高了美国房价。至少这是《财富》杂志在研究了Redfin、房地美（Freddie Mac）和哈佛大学住宅联合研究中心（Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies）近期发布的数据后所得出的结论。
哈佛大学住宅联合研究中心于上周发布的一份报告显示，2022年第一季度，投资性购房占了全美独房住宅销量的28%，创下历史纪录，这一比例远高于2021年第一季度的19%，也远高于2017年至2019年16%的平均水平。（为了进行分析，哈佛大学的研究人员使用了CoreLogic公司的房屋销售数据。）
哈佛大学的研究人员指出，投资性购房在美国南部和西部增长最为迅猛。这一发现也得到了Redfin公司的一项独立分析的支持。该分析是基于所有房型的销量数据进行的（而不像哈佛大学的分析只着眼于独户住宅），研究显示，2022年第一季度，投资性购房占到了亚特兰大房市销量的33.1%。紧随其后的是杰克森维尔（32.3%）、夏洛特（32.3%）、菲尼克斯（29.0%）和迈阿密（28.2%）。穆迪分析（Moody's Analytics）指出，这些城市也是全美房价“最被高估”的城市，也最有可能出现房价下跌。
虽然美国南部和西部地区的投资性购房活动最多，不过几乎每个美国主要城市的投资性购房活动都在增多。例如在Redfin追踪的31个大城市中，有29个城市的投资性购房活动都有所增加。光是在俄亥俄州，就有辛辛那提（+2.9%）、克利夫兰（+3.1%）和哥伦布（+7%）等城市的出现了投资性购房增多的情况。从2021年第一季度到2022年第一季度，只有西雅图（-0.5%）和密尔沃基（-0.1%）的投资性购房有所下降。
房地美的研究人员也在公开数据基础上进行了分析，不过从他们的研究结果看，投资性住房的增长幅度并没有哈佛大学和Redfin描绘的那么大。房地美发现，从2019年12月至2021年12月，美国的投资性购房从26.7%提高到了27.6%。不过房地美也承认，他们的分析并未充分覆盖投资者的“全现金”购房。
需要指出的是，在美国，参与投资性购房的绝大多数是中小投资者，比如民宿经营者，或者靠收租度日的富二代等等。根据哈佛大学的研究，2021年9月，有74%的投资性购房，是由名下房产少于100套的投资者购买的。其余26%则被名下房产多于100套的大买家拿下。
而这些大投资者的入局，也是导致炒房行为增多的重要原因之一。
哈佛大学的研究人员指出：“拥有大量房产（至少100套）的投资者在相当程度上推动了这一波增长。从2020年9月到2021年9月，这些大投资者的购房比例从14%增长至26%，几乎翻了一番。他们进军独户住宅市场后，潜在刚需群体，特别是首次购房者和收入有限者的可选择范围被进一步挤压了。”
这些大投资者都是谁？他们有的是大型租赁公司，例如全美最大的独户住宅租赁商Invitation Homes。在新冠疫情期间，它出手买了不少房子。创办该公司的黑石集团也在新冠疫情期间重返独户住宅市场。（2019年，黑石集团在出售了Invitation Homes的剩余股份后，退出了这项业务。）
新冠疫情以来的这一波房地产繁荣，也促进了线上购房市场的崛起。很多线上大买家——比如Opendoor、Offerpad、RedfinNow和Zillow Offers等，都会在全美各地四处询价，然后很快将吃下的房产重新投放到市场上。这种做法不像传统的旧房翻新重售模式，而更像是一种“走量”销售。在每笔交易中，这些公司都会向买家收取一定的“服务费”，作为迅速锁定交易的报酬。
随着住房市场的繁荣，房地产网站Zillow的营收也出现了飙升。2021年第一季度，它的利润达到了创纪录的5200万美元。信心大增的Zillow迅速进军“线上购房”市场，购房支出迅速占到其总收入的四分之三以上。只不过，Zillow的炒房神话最终在2021年秋天以爆雷告终。有分析师告诉《财富》杂志，Zillow的炒房爆雷与它的算法问题有关系。这个被吹爆的算法至少让Zillow给几千套房子多掏了不少钱。
不过，美国房市上的大多数投资者，都是一些你可能从未听说过的群体。像Opendoor和黑石集团这样的大玩家，实际上只吃掉了投资性购房市场上的一小块蛋糕。
房地美的研究人员本月早些时候曾经指出：“尽管大型机构投资者在市场上所占的份额正在迅速上升，而且很可能继续扩大，但它们的份额仍然很小，而且对整个市场的影响也并不大。”房地美的数据显示，在新冠疫情期间，“线上买房”和机构买家的交易份额大概只从1.5%提高到了4.5%左右。
在短短两年时间里，美国房价上涨了37%。这么大幅度的房价上涨，当然不可能归咎于任何一家公司。不过考虑到投资需求的上升，你会发现，投资性需求至少在某种程度上要为房价上涨负责。新冠疫情期间，大大小小的投资者的确抢占了更多的市场份额。而且炒房行为影响的不仅仅是房子本身。即便炒房者在竞价中处于劣势，他们的参与也给房价造成了上涨压力。
随着按揭利率加息已成定局，新冠疫情带来的房市过热也必将退烧。那么我们不禁要问：投资者大举涌入住房市场，这究竟只是新冠疫情期间的短期行为，还是预兆着一个长期趋势的开始？
现在，抵押贷款利率的飙升已经劝退了很多首次购房者。与此同时，一些炒房客也在退出市场。一旦炒房客要还的月供超过了租金，炒房就会变得不再划算。
Redfin的高级经济学家谢哈里·博哈里在本月发表的一份报告中写道：“投资性购房趋软的原因与市场整体趋软的原因相同，那就是利率飙升和房价高企导致按揭购房的成本变得过高。虽然将近四分之三的投资性购房都是用现金进行的，但投资者也会受到利率影响，因为他们通常是通过贷款获得现金的。”（财富中文网）
译者：朴成奎
Text messages. Mailers. Cold calls. Over the past two years, homeowners have been bombarded with inquiries from investors who want to know one thing: Are they open to selling their property?
Since the onset of the Pandemic Housing Boom, investors have flooded the U.S. housing market. There are small players, like mom-and-pop landlords and Airbnb hosts who are adding to their property portfolios. Home flippers returned with vengeance. There's also the Wall Street-types like Blackstone and iBuyer players like Opendoor Technologies that are gobbling up homes. The combination of low mortgage rates, easy access to capital, and record home appreciation was all too enticing for investors to pass up on.
However, even as investors piled into the housing market, many real estate insiders over the past two years hesitated to attribute much, if any, of the boom to investors. In their view, numerous factors drove the housing frenzy. Historically low mortgage rates, spurred by the Federal Reserve's response to the COVID-19 recession, attracted all types of buyers. That included white-collar professionals who saw their jobs transition to remote during the pandemic and were eager to ditch apartments in places like San Francisco and Boston for homes in markets like Boise and Tampa. The pandemic also coincided with the five-year window (between 2019 and 2023) when millennials born during the generation’s five largest birth years (between 1989 and 1993) would hit the peak first-time homebuying age of 30. That elevated demand simply overwhelmed the supply side: Housing inventory, which was already trending downward before the pandemic struck, fell to a 40-year low during the boom.
But that hesitation to name investors as one of the pillars of the Pandemic Housing Boom is no longer necessary. It's now abundantly clear that investors did indeed help accelerate the housing boom and drive up U.S. home prices. At least that's what Fortune concluded after looking over recent data published by Redfin, Freddie Mac, and the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.
In the first quarter of 2022, investors made up a record 28% of single-family home sales, according to a report published last week by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. That's up from 19% in the first quarter of 2021. It's also far above the 16% that investors made up of single-family home sales between 2017 and 2019. (To conduct the analysis, the Harvard researchers analyzed home sale data collected by CoreLogic).
The investor bull rush into the housing market was the most pronounced in fast-growing markets in the U.S. South and West, according to the Harvard researchers. That finding is backed up by a separate Redfin analysis, which looked at all home sales (unlike Harvard's single-family homes analysis). In the first quarter of 2022, investors made up a staggering 33.1% of home sales in Atlanta. Not far behind was Jacksonville (32.3%), Charlotte (32.3%), Phoenix (29.0%), and Miami (28.2%). Those same markets are also among the nation's most "overvalued" housing markets that are at-risk of seeing a home price decline, according to Moody's Analytics.
While markets in the South and West saw the most investor activity, almost every major U.S. housing market saw an uptick. Among the 31 large markets analyzed by Redfin, 29 saw an uptick in investor activity. Look no further than Ohio, which saw the share of investor homes sales jump in Cincinnati (up 2.9 percentage points), Cleveland (up 3.1 percentage points), and Columbus (up 7 percentage points). Between the first quarter of 2021 and the first quarter of 2022, only Seattle (down 0.5 percentage points) and Milwaukee (down 0.1 percentage points) saw a decline in the share of home sales attributed to investors.
Researchers at Freddie Mac, who did their own analysis of public records, found a more modest jump in investor purchases than Harvard and Redfin researchers. Between December 2019 and December 2021, Freddie Mac found investor home purchases climbed from 26.7% to 27.6%. However, Freddie Mac acknowledges their analysis isn't fully capturing "all-cash" purchases by investors.
Let's be clear: The vast majority of investor home purchases in America are still made by small or midsized investors: everyone from average Joes owning an Airbnb rental to individuals who've spent years amassing a hefty portfolio of rentals. According to the Harvard study, 74% of investor purchases in September were made by investors with portfolios of less than 100 properties. The remaining 26% of investor purchases were made by groups with property portfolios of at least 100 units.
That said, it's clear that those big investors were among the biggest drivers of the uptick in investor purchases.
"Investors with large portfolios (at least 100 properties) drove much of this growth, nearly doubling their share of investor purchases from 14% in September 2020 to 26% in September 2021," wrote the Harvard researchers. "By buying up single-family homes, investors have reduced the already limited supply available to potential owner-occupants, particularly first-time and moderate-income buyers."
Who are these big investors? Some are massive rental companies like Invitation Homes—the nation's largest owner of single-family rental homes—which grew its portfolio during the pandemic. Blackstone, which founded Invitation Homes back in 2012, also got back into the single-family home business during the pandemic. (In 2019, Blackstone had backed away from the business after selling its remaining shares of Invitation Homes.)
The Pandemic Housing Boom also saw a surge on the iBuying side of the market. These iBuyers—including firms like Opendoor, Offerpad, RedfinNow, and Zillow Offers—went around the country making swift offers to home sellers. The companies would then quickly put the home back on the market. It's less of a traditional "home flip" and more of a volume play: On each sale, iBuyers net a "service fee" that the firm charges the buyer in exchange for the speedy transaction.
As the housing boom took hold, it saw Zillow's earnings initially soar—with the real estate site posting a record $52 million profit in the first quarter of 2021. That fed Zillow’s iBuyer confidence as it quickly grew its home buying business to over three-fourths of its total revenues. Of course, Zillow's home flipping business would go on to implode in epic fashion last fall. But only after Zillow’s much-lauded algorithm overpaid, analysts tell Fortune, for thousands of U.S. homes.
But most housing investors are still groups you've likely never heard of. The Opendoor and Blackstones of the world, at least for now, are still a small piece of the investor pie.
"While large corporate investors are rapidly rising as a share of the market and are likely to expand, they remain so small that their market share only has a modest impact on the overall percentage of investors," wrote Freddie Mac researchers earlier this month. During the pandemic, iBuyer and institutional buyers have jumped from around a 1.5% market share of purchases to around 4.5%, according to Freddie Mac.
It's intellectually dishonest to pin soaring U.S. home prices—which are up 37% over the past two years—on any one company. However, when you step back and examine the elevated demand that has come from the investor side of the market, it's clear they've attributed, at least in some degree, to soaring home prices. Investors, both big and small, gobbled up a larger market share during the pandemic. The impact of elevated investor demand also goes beyond the homes they actually bought. Even when investors are on the losing side of a bidding war, from an economic lens at least, they are still putting upward pressure on prices.
As the Pandemic Housing boom implodes amid spiked mortgage rates, it raises the question: Is the investor rush into the housing market a temporary feature of the pandemic or the start of a lasting trend?
While spiked mortgage rates are pricing out many first-time buyers, it's also seeing investors pull back from the market. Surging mortgage rates change the math for investors: The added costs means many investors would take on mortgage payments that are greater than they can charge for rent.
“Investor home purchases are falling for the same reason overall home purchases are falling: Surging interest rates and high housing prices have made it more expensive to get a mortgage and buy a home,” wrote Sheharyar Bokhari, a senior economist at Redfin, in a report published this month. “While roughly three-quarters of investor purchases are made with cash, investors are still impacted by interest rates because they often take out loans to get that cash.”
