The planned launch of the MRT Neihu Line in Taipei City early next month has resulted in a rise of as much as 25 percent in the price of luxury homes and villas there, realtors said yesterday.
“Of all the city’s villas areas, Neihu District (內湖) will be the only area within the MRT system’s reach, which isn’t the case for those located in Yangmingshan (陽明山), Xindian (新店) or Sijhih (汐止),” Taiwan Realty (台灣房屋) chief executive officer Kevin Peng (彭培業) said in a statement yesterday.
Prices of villa homes around the district’s Dahu Park (大湖公園) were the most popular, having bottomed out in the fourth quarter of last year and surged 25 percent to average in a range between NT$550,000 (US$16,700) and NT$620,000 per ping, a survey by Taiwan Realty showed.
Prices of apartments and second-hand homes in the district have also benefited, with prices rising an average of 12.5 percent over the same period, the company said.
On average, property prices in Neihu have jumped between 10 percent and 15 percent since the beginning of this year and are expected to stabilize after traffic concerns ease after the launch of the MRT line, Jeffrey Huang (黃增福), an assistant manager at Evertrust Rehouse Co’s (永慶房屋) research and development department, said by telephone yesterday. This also includes office rentals in the Neihu Science Park, he said.
The district’s number of closed deals was rising and peaked at 45 percent growth month-on-month in March before dropping 10 percent in April and rising 23 percent last month, statistics showed.
Huang said luxury homes around the MRT line’s Dazhi (大直) Station had become must-see destinations for China-based Taiwanese businesspeople as the MRT line would provide a one-stop link to Taipei Songshan Airport, where cross-strait direct flights have been available since late last year.
Once Chinese investors are allowed to buy domestic residential property, a further rise could be seen in prices of the district’s luxury homes, he said. In some cases, the MRT line could distort nearby districts’ property prices, as happened to Tucheng (土城), Taipei County, where prices peaked before the launch of a MRT line and have since dropped.
But property prices in Neihu could see a longer-than-expected boost and be the exception “if the nation’s macroeconomic recovery can be sustained,” Lee Jain-ming (李健銘), a researcher at Sinyi Real Estate Inc (信義房屋), the nation’s largest housing agent, said yesterday.
Lee said he expects closer business ties with China to encourage foreign business — especially the high-tech sector — to return to Taiwan, which could seek to set up headquarters in Neihu and use Taiwan as a springboard to expand into China.
This would engender price increases in the district’s office buildings, retail stores and residential properties, he said.
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