2014年会成为美国房地产复苏年吗？

从各方面的经济数据来看，美国房屋销售市场正在复苏的路上。今年春季，美国房屋销售在各地表现稍有差异，但总体活力十足。

今年春季美国房屋市场的强劲表现说明，在经过近十年异常的沉浮，房屋市场终于回到了复苏的轨道上。

复苏不是说房屋的价格将会回到衰退前的峰值，再说这些高峰价格也是不可持续的。对复苏的较好定义是看市场参与者房贷还贷压力和被法拍房屋数量的下降，同时房屋销售和建设又健康持续增长。2013年房屋价格在增量资金和房屋供应量减少的双重推动下取得较大上涨后，2014年注定就是这样一个启程转换的重要年份。

现在有些投资者正在回到这个市场，许多潜在买家正在感到价格上涨带来的压力。同时，价格的上涨正引导更多的房屋拥有者出售他们的房屋，双方造就了目前供销两旺的春季市场。

看起来“一切正在向好的方向发展”Greg Mcbride,说，他是Bankrate.com的首席金融分析师。他预测说：“房屋价格最近的上涨，带动了更多的房屋挂牌出售，温和的价格复苏又保证买家的积极参与”他认为：”情况对买家非常有利“。因为贷款利率相对于房屋价格而言仍然保持在历史低位。”“基本上仍然是房贷危机以前的流鼻血水平”。要使房屋市场价格回到正常水平，仍然是个挑战。主要的因素是美国家庭收入增长低于房屋价格增长，另外，首次购房者积累首付也正面临困难，许多美国年轻人正被挤压出购房市场。“我们期望看到初次购房屋者能在2014年有所增加。”Daren Blomquist 说，Realty Trac的付总裁。

买卖双方混战胶着的市场将怎样引导房屋市场未来的价格呢？

尽管胶着的力量让市场难以预测,但许多经济学家认为2014年房价就全国平均水平而言会小幅上涨。房贷利率的上涨已经减缓了许多城市房屋价格去年以来快速上涨。专业机构Capital Economics预测今年的涨幅会是4%-5%，而去年曾经达到了12%。期望这将会将房屋价格复苏纳入一个平稳增长的道路。当然，在平均30年房屋贷款利率从去年的3.5%增加到4.37%后，Realty Trac机构就估计平均三房的房贷者月付款实际负担增加了21%（包括本金，利息，保险，税和维护成本）.市场也存在这样的风险就是贷款买房者因为不断上升的利率和信贷紧缩而退宿，导致价格上涨的趋势逆转。

总体而言，美国房屋市场正健康增长，许多城市的法定拍卖房屋比例已经回到危机前的水平，房屋平均价格相对于收入和租金都在合理区间。美国房屋价格已经从危机发生后的历史低位反弹了22%，但短期无力再向历史高位进发。

Could 2014 be the year the housing market really recovers?

From all indications and statistics available, the housing market recovery is well under way but not yet complete. Spring is the housing market's time of greatest activity, and in 2014 the story of US real estate varies by location.

Spring in the United States means it's time for the housing market's months of greatest activity. Since the market has been such a wacky place for more than a decade now, it's worth pausing for a moment on that word "recovery."

The word doesn't mean getting home prices back to pre-recession peaks. Those peaks, after all, were artifacts of an unsustainable boom. A better definition of recovery would be when local markets no longer have historically high rates of foreclosures and mortgage distress, and are experiencing a healthy and sustainable pace of home sales and construction. 2014 is poised to be an important transitional year. 2013 saw big gains in house prices, as buyers competed with cash-rich investors for access to a relatively slim inventory of properties for sale.

Now investors are backing off a bit. And many would-be buyers are feeling the pinch of higher prices. At the same time, those higher prices promise to lure more sellers to list their homes during the big spring sales season. That would help to create a market with a more balanced mix of buyers and sellers.

As it looks, "Things are moving in the right direction," says Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate.com, a financial information firm in North Palm Beach, Fla. He predicts that recent gains in home prices "will entice would-be sellers, but a more modest pace of home price appreciation will keep buyers active." Mr. McBride calls conditions "pretty favorable for home buyers" because mortgage rates remain historically low while home prices "have not gotten anywhere near the nosebleed levels prior to the housing bust." But if this is a market approaching greater normalcy, it's still a market with challenges.

One is that household incomes aren't rising as fast as home prices. Another is that potential first-time buyers aren't finding it easy to save money for down payments. Many housing analysts see a pent-up supply of young Americans who want to step out of family nests to form households of their own. It appears that 2014 will be the year where we need to see the first-time home buyers step up to the plate in greater numbers, according to Daren Blomquist, vice president of RealtyTrac, an industry data firm based in Irvine, Calif. Rising home prices are a positive factor for a different category of buyers: people who want to move but have felt unable to sell their existing home.

What will the evolving mix of buyers and sellers mean for home prices this season and beyond?

The to-and-fro forces make this a tough market to forecast, but many economists see 2014 as a year of progress though at a slower pace, with modest gains in home prices for the nation on average. Already, an uptick in mortgage interest rates prompted a slowdown in the pace of price gains in many cities late last year, from New York and Washington to Phoenix and cities on the Pacific coast. Forecasting firm Capital Economics sees price gains slowing to perhaps 4 or 5 percent this year, compared with a roughly 12 percent pace seen last year. This scenario will possibly put the house price recovery on a more sustainable path. There exist the risks of a much less benign scenario in which mortgage-dependent buyers are unable to replace investors because of rising interest rates or tight credit conditions, which may see the trend of price gains potentially reversing course. At 4.37 percent, the average interest rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage has gone up sharply from about 3.5 percent last March.

RealtyTrac recently estimated that the average monthly payment on a median-price three-bedroom home (including principal, interest, insurance, taxes, and maintenance) has gone up 21 percent over the past year. Still, the overall housing market has been growing healthier. Rates of foreclosure are approaching pre-recession levels in a number of cities; even some where the boom and bust cycle was most extreme, such as Phoenix. And although coastal cities have returned to lofty home values, many US markets are priced in a reasonable zone relative to local incomes and rents. On average, US home prices have jumped about 22 percent from their recession low points, but won't reach their boom-level peaks unless they climb that much again, according to the Urban Institute's Housing Finance Policy Center in Washington.

Reference:

Trumbull, M. (2014). Could 2014 be the year the housing market really recovers? The Christian Science Monitor.