Why on Earth would you buy down here when you can rent?' asked a friend of mine in Miami Beach not long ago. 'Buying is so over.'

不久前，住在美国迈阿密滩的一位朋友问我，能在这儿租房住，到底为什么还要买房呢？买房的时代已经结束。

He promptly¹ moved to Manhattan for work reasons-and bought a $1 million loft² on the Upper West Side.

出于工作的原因，他很快便搬到曼哈顿，并花100万美元在上西区买了个Loft。

Note the typical behavior. People want to buy when prices are up, and turn more wary³ when they've collapsed⁴. Logically it makes no sense. Research out Thursday adds some hard numbers.

请注意，一种非常典型的作法。价格上涨时，人们想要买入，价格下跌时，人们变得更加小心。买涨不买跌的作法在逻辑上讲不通。周四公布的研究结果提供了一些硬数据。

Real estate website Trulia.com has looked at major real estate markets across the country and asked: Is it cheaper to buy, or to rent?

房地产网站Trulia.com研究了美国的主要房地产市场并提出一个问题：买和租哪一个更划算？

By Trulia's math my friend was moving in exactly the wrong direction.

根据Trulia网站的计算，我的朋友恰恰犯了方向性错误。

Rent in Manhattan: Home prices there are way too high, says Trulia. (Ditto San Francisco.)

Trulia网站说，在曼哈顿租房，这儿的房价太贵。旧金山也一样。

Buy in Miami. And Phoenix⁵. And Las Vegas. And most of the other places that have been flattened⁶ by the crash. Homes there are cheap compared to rents.

在迈阿密买房，与租房相比，这儿的房价便宜。类似的地方还包括凤凰城、拉斯维加斯及其它大多数房价大跌后相对较低的地方。

The cross-over point is about 15 times annual rent, the company believes. In other words, as a rough rule of thumb, homes are probably fairly valued in a city when they cost about 15 times a year's rent. So, for example, if you're paying $10,000 a year to rent a place, think twice about buying a home that costs more than $150,000. Dean Baker⁷, economist⁸ at the Washington, D.C. think-tank The Center for Economic and Policy Research, came to a similar conclusion in research on the subject in recent years. Fifteen times is the historic average, he said.

这家公司认为，年租金的15倍左右是一个交叉点。换言之，一个城市的房价约相当于年租金的15倍时或许比较合理，这是经验之谈。例如，如果你每年花 10,000美元租一套房，那么买房的成本超过150,000美元时就要考虑再三。华盛顿特区智库经济与政策研究中心(Center for Economic and Policy Research)经济学家贝克尔(Dean Baker)近年对这一问题的研究也得出了类似的结论。他说，15倍是历史均值。

So what's the multiple in New York right now?

那么纽约现在是多少倍呢？

About 32 times, says Trulia. The average two-bedroom condo or townhouse in New York city costs about 32 times as much to buy as it does to rent. Other major markets over 20 times include Seattle (24 times), San Francisco (22 times) and Portland, Ore. (22 times).

Trulia网站说，纽约现在是32倍左右。在纽约市买一套两居室的共管公寓或联排别墅平均高达年租金的32倍左右。高于20倍的其它城市包括西雅图（24倍）、旧金山（22倍）和俄勒冈州的波特兰（22倍）。

On the other hand Miami list prices are now about eight times annual rents, says Trulia. Phoenix is about 10 times and Las Vegas about 11.

Trulia网站说，另一方面，迈阿密的登记价格现在约是年租金的八倍，凤凰城约为10倍，拉斯维加斯约11倍。

Trulia's data need to be taken with some caveats⁹. Trulia looked at list prices rather than actual transaction prices, so its figures for prices may be too high.

需要说明的是：Trulia网站的数据是基于登记价格而不是实际交易价格，因此价格可能过高。

Furthermore drawing the cut-off point at 15 times rents may be on the low side.

此外，把交叉点定在租金的15倍或许偏低。

Mr. Baker, in conversation yesterday, said that figure assumes that you're only going to stay in your home for the typical seven years. If you stay a lot longer, he says, the transaction costs of buying and selling become less and less important. That makes owning more attractive.

在昨天的谈话中，贝克说这一数值假定你将只在这套房子里住七年。这是人们在一套房屋里通常居住的时间。他说，如果你住得更久一些，房屋买卖的交易费用相对摊薄，重要性也降低，则购房的吸引力就变大一些。

Nonetheless the Trulia analysis seems directionally correct. Work done by the C.E.P.R. last year came to similar conclusions: Namely that markets like New York and the California coast remained expensive compared to rents, while the hardest hit markets now look cheap.

尽管如此，Trulia的分析看来在方向上是正确的。经济与政策研究中心去年所做研究得出了类似的结论：即，与租金相比，纽约和加利福尼亚沿海地区的房价较贵，而那些房价下跌最猛的地方现在看来比较便宜。

And Trulia's research emphasizes two points that are absolutely spot on.

Trulia的研究强调了两点。这两点完全正确。

First, homeowners need to look first and hardest at present cashflow. The cult¹⁰ of homeownership made no sense. If renting is much cheaper than buying, think seriously about it.

首先，房主需要先非常认真地看看当前的现金流。为了当房主而买房毫无意义。如果租金比房价便宜很多，要三思而后行。

Second: The markets that have fallen the furthest now look like good places to buy, while those that seem to be 'safest' aren't. As the saying goes: There is no such thing as a 'safe' investment, merely one whose risks are not yet apparent. It's a principle that a lot of people forget time and again.

其次，房价跌幅最大的地区现在看来像是置业的好地方，而那些看似“最安全”的地方却并非如此。老话说：没有“安全”的投资，所谓安全只是风险还不明显而已。这条法则一再被人遗忘。