Low-priced, regular residential properties in Kaohsiung outperformed five other metropolitan cities in Asia including Taipei and Taichung in Taiwan and Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou in China to report the highest rental return of 4.1 percent for last year, a survey by H&B Realty (住商不動產), the nation’s largest real-estate broker by number of outlets, showed yesterday.
Residential properties in Taichung and Kaohsiung saw 3.2 percent and 4.1 percent price hikes respectively last year to average NT$141,000 and NT$107,000 per ping (3.3m2), or a rental average of NT$385 and NT$367 per ping, which represented a rental return of 3.2 percent and 4.1 percent per year, the survey showed.
After a price hike of 26 percent, prices for regular residential properties in Taipei averaged NT$416,000 (US$13,072) per ping with an average rental price of NT$820 per ping, yielding a rental return of 2.3 percent last year, the survey’s findings showed.
The survey included two and three bedroom apartments built more than 15 years ago in Taipei and those built more than 10 years ago in Taichung and Kaohsiung, as well as those built in the past five years in Shanghai and Hangzhou and averaged-priced properties in Beijing’s six major districts.
Among these six cities, residential properties in Shanghai and Beijing were the most expensive averaging NT$535,000 and NT$501,000 per ping respectively, with rental returns of 2 percent and 2.9 percent, after price hikes of 55 percent and 60 percent last year.
In terms of grade-A offices, office properties in both Taichung and Beijing reported the highest rental returns of 5.1 percent, higher than Kaohsiung’s 4.9 percent, Shanghai’s 4.8 percent and Taipei’s 3.1 percent.
Despite high rental returns, H.C. Chen (陳錫琮), the realtor’s Taipei-based general manager, yesterday warned that demand for Taichung city’s commercial rental properties remains weak. On the back of a solid economic recovery, Chen forecast a 5 percent to 8 percent price hike for domestic residential properties by the end of this year although he expressed concern over interest rate hikes in the second half of this year, which he said would spell bad news for home buyers.
Office rents in Shanghai and Beijing outperformed four other cities at NT$2,760 and NT$2,754 per ping, compared to NT$1,276 per ping in Taipei.
Storefront properties in Shanghai enjoyed the highest rental return of 6 percent among the six cities as a result of heavy demand, Mike Zhou (周宇鳴), the realtor’s Shanghai-based general manager, told yesterday’s media briefing. After reporting 150 percent growth in revenues for last year, the realtor vowed to more than double its number of branches in China from 303 to 750 in 2012, Zhou said.
Expressing confidence in growth momentum in both the local and Chinese property markets, company chairman Wu Yao-kung (吳耀焜) heralded H&B’s total of 637 outlets across Taiwan and China — the largest of its peers.
Meanwhile, after the government launched measures to curb property price hikes, sales in 15 major housing projects in Taipei declined by between 30 percent and 50 percent from last weekend, a Housing Monthly magazine survey found yesterday.
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