中国房地产泡沫的起源:地方政府的财政困境与土地财政

说说房地产，最近和房地产有关的新闻挺多的，一个是恒大集团终于申请破产，不过它是在美国申请破产，虽然不是很懂，但是这在美国申请破产肯定还是有些门道的，因为众所周知，美国前总统董王川普就是干房地产的百万富翁，而在他的经商经历当中，曾经多次申请破产，但这一点也不有损于他百万富翁的地位。说实话，这个世界就是这样诡异的不公平。如果一般人做个生意做成这样，资不抵债，欠账上万亿，估计早就找个地方跳楼去了，而恒大的许老板这一年多来倒是没听他着急上火，吃不下饭睡不着觉的报道。

除了恒大的事情之外，还有另外一家大型房企碧桂园也出现了债务违约的情况，而它的总债务也在万亿以上，这么大的窟窿看来是谁也堵不上了。房地产为何会到这个田地呢?曾经是支柱产业，所有人的概念里面都是房价永远上涨，如今却乏人问津呢?那之前这二十年的不断上涨，其中的逻辑又是什么呢?

这一切可能还是要从朱镕基当总理时的分税制改革说起。中国历史上曾经有多次的变法，比如战国时期的商鞅变法，北宋时期的王安石变法，以及明朝张居正的一条鞭法。因为文革之后的中国进入了改革开放的时代，改革是主旋律，所以这些人也被冠以改革家的名声大加吹捧，认为他们是在打破旧的利益集团，推行新法，让国家强大的代表性历史人物。其实，商鞅、王安石、张居正这样的人推行的改革与改革开放的本质是不一样的。简而言之，这些古代改革家的改革实际上就是国进民退，收割民间财富充实国家的力量，而改革开放则是计划经济向市场经济的转轨，使国退民进，本质上是完全不同。但是朱镕基总理这个人身上就有一定的两面性了。一方面，他和那些古代改革家是一样的，推行了分税制改革，其目的就是加强了中央财政对地方经济的汲取力度，中央财政在地方经济创造的财政收入中的份额得到了扩大。这一点和商鞅、王安石、张居正并没有什么本质上的区别。不过另一方面，他也推动中国加入了WTO，使中国融入了全球化的市场经济，使中国市场经济的程度又上了一个大大的台阶，也为后来中国成为世界工厂摆下了伏笔。

朱镕基的分税制改革使中央从地方拿走的蛋糕变得更多了，加强了中央的实力与权威。自然地方政府分的蛋糕就变小了，但是大量的基层工作还是得地方政府来做，而这些都是要花钱的，特别是基础设施的建设更是耗资巨大。在通货膨胀还不算明显的21世纪初期，一公里的地铁耗资就是上亿人民币，这么大一笔钱从何而来呢?仅靠分税制中分给地方的那一点税收是远远不够的，于是地方政府就找到了另外一块财源，就是土地财政——通过卖地进行房地产开发来获取财政收入。

在刚刚进入市场经济的那个年代之前，人们经历了很长一段时间的分房时期，所以人们对花钱买房还没有概念，也没想到房价会涨到天上去。房价从某种程度上来说并不是由于需求旺盛而炒上去的，而是地方政府、开发商和银行三家玩起来的金融游戏。炒作房地产的很大程度上并不需要有多么雄厚的资本，只要你能够在政府和银行有足够的人脉关系。当然，这一条就说明你非富即贵了，能够从政府拿到地的批文，然后用这个去银行抵押，贷出贷款，用贷款把地买下，然后再找施工队进场开工。在房地产上升时期，很多施工队都是垫资开发的，也不需要房地产开发商付多少钱，房子还没做好，开发商就可以预售收回部分资金，偿还贷款，并且拿更多的地，贷更多的款，像这样滚雪球做大是非常容易的。这也是为什么像恒大、碧桂园这样的开发商能够欠银行上万亿的贷款，因为只要他们能够从政府不断地拿地，就能够不断地贷款。

但是如果仅仅说房价高涨只是政府、开发商和银行参加的金融游戏是不够客观，毕竟所有这些贷款最后都要转嫁到买房人的身上。而也正是因为加入WTO之后中国经济的高速发展，使越来越多的百姓分享到了经济发展的成果，收入大大增加，使他们对未来的期望变得更加正面，认为收入和生活水平会不断地上涨，这也是他们拿出积蓄投入到房产当中的原因。所以说归根结底，房地产能够涨到如今这个高度的根本动力还是经济的发展和人民生活水平的提高。

如今随着头部房企的不断爆雷，房价不断上涨的趋势似乎是停止了，于是又有很多砖家跳出来说要拯救房地产经济。因为拯救房地产就是拯救经济，这实际上又是因果倒置了。仅仅是通过财政政策、货币政策不断地放水，让房地产这个金融游戏能够在开发商、银行和政府之间玩下去，是不足以继续吹大这个已经大得不能再大的泡沫了，没有最终接盘的民众，这个游戏是不可能玩下去的。只有经济好了，大家恢复了对未来的良好预期才可能继续带动房地产市场向上发展。

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Talk about real estate, recently there are a lot of news related to real estate, one is Evergrande Group finally filed for bankruptcy, but it is in the United States to apply for bankruptcy, although not very understand, but this in the United States to apply for bankruptcy must still have some way, because as we all know, the former president of the United States Dong Wang Trump is a real estate millionaire, and in his business experience, He has filed for bankruptcy several times, but this does not detract from his millionaire status. Honestly, the world is weirdly unfair. If the average person does a business like this, insolvent, owing trillions, it is estimated that he would have found a place to jump off a building, and Evergrande's boss Xu did not listen to reports that he was anxious to get angry and could not eat or sleep for more than a year.

In addition to Evergrande, there is another large housing enterprise Country Garden has also defaulted on its debt, and its total debt is also more than one trillion, so it seems that no one can plug the hole. Why did real estate come to this field? It used to be a pillar industry, and everyone's concept is that house prices will always rise, but now no one is interested? What was the logic behind the previous two decades of rising prices?

It may all start with Zhu Rongji's tax-sharing reform when he was premier. There have been many reforms in Chinese history, such as Shang Yang's Reform in the Warring States Period, Wang Anshi's reform in the Northern Song Dynasty, and Zhang Juzheng's whip method in the Ming Dynasty. Because China entered the era of reform and opening up after the Cultural Revolution, reform was the main theme, so these people were also touted as reformers, who were supposed to break up old interest groups, introduce new laws, and make the country strong representative historical figures. In fact, the reform carried out by people like Shang Yang, Wang Anshi and Zhang Juzheng is different from the essence of reform and opening up. In short, the reform of these ancient reformers was actually the state advancing and the people retreating, reaping the wealth of the people to enrich the power of the state, while the reform and opening up was the transition from the planned economy to the market economy, making the state retreating and the people advancing, which was completely different in essence. But there are two sides to Premier Zhu Rongji. On the one hand, like those ancient reformers, he carried out the tax sharing reform, the purpose of which was to strengthen the central finance's absorption of the local economy, and expand the share of the central finance in the financial revenue generated by the local economy. This is not fundamentally different from Shang Yang, Wang Anshi and Zhang Juzheng. But on the other hand, he also promoted China's accession to the WTO, so that China into the globalization of the market economy, the degree of China's market economy to a great step, but also for the later China to become the world's factory laid the foreshadowing.

Zhu Rongji's reform of the tax sharing system allowed the central government to take more of the cake from the local governments, strengthening the power and authority of the central government. Naturally, local governments will have a smaller share of the pie, but they still have to do a lot of grass-roots work, which costs money, especially the construction of infrastructure. In the early 21st century, when inflation was not obvious, a kilometer of subway cost hundreds of millions of yuan, where did such a large amount of money come from? It is far from enough to rely only on the tax revenue distributed to the local government, so the local government has found another source of revenue, that is, land finance - by selling land for real estate development to obtain financial revenue.

Before entering the era of market economy, people experienced a long period of house distribution, so people did not have the concept of spending money to buy a house, nor did they think that house prices would rise to the sky. To some extent, housing prices are not inflated by strong demand, but a financial game played by local governments, developers and banks. For the most part, real estate speculation does not require much capital, as long as you can have enough connections in the government and banks. Of course, this article shows that you are not rich or expensive, you can get the approval of the land from the government, and then use this to go to the bank to mortgage, loan out loans, buy the land with loans, and then find the construction team to start. In the period of real estate rise, many construction teams are cushion development, and do not need real estate developers to pay much money, the house is not done, the developer can pre-sell part of the money, repay the loan, and take more land, loan more money, like this snowball big is very easy. This is also why developers like Evergrande and Country Garden can owe trillions of dollars in loans to banks, because as long as they can continue to take land from the government, they can continue to borrow.

But it is not objective to say that the housing price boom is just a financial game played by the government, developers and banks, all of which must be passed on to home buyers. It is precisely because of the rapid development of China's economy after China's accession to the WTO that more and more people have shared the fruits of economic development and their income has increased greatly, so that their expectations for the future have become more positive and they believe that their income and living standards will continue to rise, which is why they put their savings into real estate. Therefore, in the final analysis, the fundamental driving force for real estate to rise to this height is economic development and the improvement of people's living standards.

Now with the continuous explosion of the head housing enterprises, the rising trend of house prices seems to have stopped, so there are many bricks jumped out to save the real estate economy. Because to save the housing market is to save the economy, this is in effect an inversion of cause and effect. Only through fiscal policies and monetary policies to continuously release water, so that the real estate financial game can be played between developers, banks and the government, is not enough to continue to blow up this already big bubble, without the final people to take over, this game is impossible to play. Only when the economy improves and everyone restores good expectations for the future can the real estate market continue to develop upward. Talk about real estate, recently there are a lot of news related to real estate, one is Evergrande Group finally filed for bankruptcy, but it is in the United States to apply for bankruptcy, although not very understand, but this in the United States to apply for bankruptcy must still have some way, because as we all know, the former president of the United States Dong Wang Trump is a real estate millionaire, and in his business experience, He has filed for bankruptcy several times, but this does not detract from his millionaire status. Honestly, the world is weirdly unfair. If the average person does a business like this, insolvent, owing trillions, it is estimated that he would have found a place to jump off a building, and Evergrande's boss Xu did not listen to reports that he was anxious to get angry and could not eat or sleep for more than a year.

In addition to Evergrande, there is another large housing enterprise Country Garden has also defaulted on its debt, and its total debt is also more than one trillion, so it seems that no one can plug the hole. Why did real estate come to this field? It used to be a pillar industry, and everyone's concept is that house prices will always rise, but now no one is interested? What was the logic behind the previous two decades of rising prices?

It may all start with Zhu Rongji's tax-sharing reform when he was premier. There have been many reforms in Chinese history, such as Shang Yang's Reform in the Warring States Period, Wang Anshi's reform in the Northern Song Dynasty, and Zhang Juzheng's whip method in the Ming Dynasty. Because China entered the era of reform and opening up after the Cultural Revolution, reform was the main theme, so these people were also touted as reformers, who were supposed to break up old interest groups, introduce new laws, and make the country strong representative historical figures. In fact, the reform carried out by people like Shang Yang, Wang Anshi and Zhang Juzheng is different from the essence of reform and opening up. In short, the reform of these ancient reformers was actually the state advancing and the people retreating, reaping the wealth of the people to enrich the power of the state, while the reform and opening up was the transition from the planned economy to the market economy, making the state retreating and the people advancing, which was completely different in essence. But there are two sides to Premier Zhu Rongji. On the one hand, like those ancient reformers, he carried out the tax sharing reform, the purpose of which was to strengthen the central finance's absorption of the local economy, and expand the share of the central finance in the financial revenue generated by the local economy. This is not fundamentally different from Shang Yang, Wang Anshi and Zhang Juzheng. But on the other hand, he also promoted China's accession to the WTO, so that China into the globalization of the market economy, the degree of China's market economy to a great step, but also for the later China to become the world's factory laid the foreshadowing.

Zhu Rongji's reform of the tax sharing system allowed the central government to take more of the cake from the local governments, strengthening the power and authority of the central government. Naturally, local governments will have a smaller share of the pie, but they still have to do a lot of grass-roots work, which costs money, especially the construction of infrastructure. In the early 21st century, when inflation was not obvious, a kilometer of subway cost hundreds of millions of yuan, where did such a large amount of money come from? It is far from enough to rely only on the tax revenue distributed to the local government, so the local government has found another source of revenue, that is, land finance - by selling land for real estate development to obtain financial revenue.

Before entering the era of market economy, people experienced a long period of house distribution, so people did not have the concept of spending money to buy a house, nor did they think that house prices would rise to the sky. To some extent, housing prices are not inflated by strong demand, but a financial game played by local governments, developers and banks. For the most part, real estate speculation does not require much capital, as long as you can have enough connections in the government and banks. Of course, this article shows that you are not rich or expensive, you can get the approval of the land from the government, and then use this to go to the bank to mortgage, loan out loans, buy the land with loans, and then find the construction team to start. In the period of real estate rise, many construction teams are cushion development, and do not need real estate developers to pay much money, the house is not done, the developer can pre-sell part of the money, repay the loan, and take more land, loan more money, like this snowball big is very easy. This is also why developers like Evergrande and Country Garden can owe trillions of dollars in loans to banks, because as long as they can continue to take land from the government, they can continue to borrow.

But it is not objective to say that the housing price boom is just a financial game played by the government, developers and banks, all of which must be passed on to home buyers. It is precisely because of the rapid development of China's economy after China's accession to the WTO that more and more people have shared the fruits of economic development and their income has increased greatly, so that their expectations for the future have become more positive and they believe that their income and living standards will continue to rise, which is why they put their savings into real estate. Therefore, in the final analysis, the fundamental driving force for real estate to rise to this height is economic development and the improvement of people's living standards.

Now with the continuous explosion of the head housing enterprises, the rising trend of house prices seems to have stopped, so there are many bricks jumped out to save the real estate economy. Because to save the housing market is to save the economy, this is in effect an inversion of cause and effect. Only through fiscal policies and monetary policies to continuously release water, so that the real estate financial game can be played between developers, banks and the government, is not enough to continue to blow up this already big bubble, without the final people to take over, this game is impossible to play. Only when the economy improves and everyone restores good expectations for the future can the real estate market continue to develop upward.