Sinyi Realty Co (信義房屋), Taiwan’s only listed real estate broker, plans to increase its office numbers by 10 percent next year as it seeks to expand after the global financial crisis forces competitors into bankruptcy.
“This is what we call investing in the downturn,” Vincent Chen, vice assistant president of the Taipei-based broker, said in an interview on Thursday.
“We are on track to meet our target to open up to 330 stores in 2012,” he said.
The company currently operates 220 outlets nationwide.
Real estate transactions fell for a fourth straight month in September to 26,457 from 42,039 in May, the latest monthly data from the Ministry of Interior shows. Concerns about pay cuts and layoffs amid the global financial crisis will further discourage potential buyers, which may lead to bankruptcies of second-tier real estate brokers toward the end of the year, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋), Taiwan’s biggest real-estate broker by number of outlets, said last month.
“The acceleration of closures of other companies will enable us to expand our market share faster,” Chen said. “We have grown our market share in previous downturns and we will this time around.”
Sinyi, which accounts for about a 5.3 percent share of the local real estate brokerage market, increased its stores 10 percent last year.
The broker also plans to set up its first store in Tokyo in the third quarter next year and add more stores in China next year, he said, declining to elaborate further.
They have opened about 100 stores in Shanghai, Beijing, Suzhou and Hangzhou.
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