封面文章：谨慎买卖房地产

　　文章导读：本期商业周刊的封面文章讲述的如今美国房地产行情飘忽不定，时涨时落。一方面买方希望能够买到物超所值的房子，而另一方面卖方也希望能赚钱，双方也随着交易而进行着角色互换，便造成眼下房产市场混乱，买卖双方都为之烦恼的现象。本文就从近期的交易实例入手，为读者分析，如何走出心理与投资的误区，在这个“紧张”的市场中，把握好自己的选择。

　　Cover Story:Buyer (And Seller) Beware

　　Is housing set to blow, or are there more gains ahead? Here's how to navigate an anxious market

　　Confused about the direction of the housing market? It's no wonder. You hear stories about sellers slashing listing prices to attract buyers, but home prices nationally have risen more than 10% over the past year. Inventories of unsold homes are on the rise, yet homebuilder Lennar Corp. just reported a 34% jump in earnings. And the much feared rise in 30-year mortgage rates seems to have stalled.

　　In this muddled situation, what should you do, whether you're on the buyer's end of the seesaw or the seller's? Cut your price now or hold out for more? Rent or buy? Go for a bigger house or a smaller one? In the New York City suburb of Larchmont, N.Y., where prices are off their peaks, confusion reigns. Says Realtor Carol Higgins: "Buyers are complaining that prices are astronomical, but sellers are still thinking they'll get what they saw their neighbors get last year."

　　Let's be honest: No one can predict with certainty which way home prices will go in the next year or so. Over the past several years almost everyone who has tried to forecast the direction of the housing market has been wrong (though BusinessWeek Chief Economist Michael Mandel takes a shot).

　　We can, however, tell you how to avoid some critical psychological and financial mistakes in today's anxious markets. No matter how smart you are, it's easy to fall into certain mental traps that can cost big bucks. Instead of concentrating on the fundamentals, people tend to be ruled by their feelings and the compulsion to compare themselves with their neighbors. If your brother-in-law made a killing in real estate, you're determined to do the same. "So much of what drives the housing market is human interpersonal dynamics," says Yale University economist Robert J. Shiller.

　　What follows is a set of practical guidelines for navigating today's choppy and uncertain real estate markets. The suggestions come from behavioral economists, who study the kinds of erroneous decisions people tend to make repeatedly, as well as from hands-on real estate experts. In addition we'll tell you which cities are more vulnerable to a drop in prices and which are less at risk.

　　CONTRARIAN COOL 冷静的独立分析

　　A first rule of thumb is to avoid herd behavior, which is what lured a lot of people into overpriced houses in the first place. The expectation of rising prices became a self-fulfilling prophecy as office mates and in-laws tried to leapfrog each other. The prevailing mindset: "You see people who aren't particularly talented, who aren't hard-working, who buy a house with nothing down, and they've been getting rich doing it. If they're getting richer, then you're falling behind," says Robert H. Frank, a Cornell University economist and author of Luxury Fever. Another attraction of herd behavior is safety in numbers. Millions of buyers can't all be wrong, can they?