Taiwan’s housing transactions fell last month from one month earlier, as global financial market turmoil dampened investor confidence, major real-estate agencies said.
Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋), the nation’s only listed real estate broker, saw its sales drop 8 percent in Taipei City and 13 percent in New Taipei City last month, from August, the company said in a statement.
Stanley Su (蘇啟榮), head of Sinyi’s research department, said the decline was mainly the result of equity corrections across global bourses last month, during which the TAIEX shed 6.67 percent, or 515.98 points, to finish at 7,225.38 at the close of trade on Friday.
Foreign investors slashed NT$78.68 billion (US$2.58 billion) in net local shares last month, after cutting NT$190.35 billion net holdings one month earlier, Taiwan Stock Exchange data indicated.
Houses priced at NT$20 million or lower accounted for 75 percent of Sinyi’s transactions as people favored cash over aggressive real -estate investments amid growing economic uncertainty, Su said.
The cautious sentiment drove up inquiries for two-bedroom apartments valued at between NT$12 million and NT$22 million among first-time home buyers, Su said.
Prices were likely to remain flat or fall slightly on a negative wealth effect in the coming months, he said, while young married couples and people intent on tying the knot would support the market.
Taiwanese like to get married toward the end of the year and home purchases are considered important in building families.
H&B Realty Co (住商不動產), the nation’s largest real-estate broker by number of franchises, reported a 5 percent fall in housing transactions last month, with the Greater Taipei area accounting for most of that, the broker said in a statement.
“More and more people share the view that cash is king after the global bourses tumbled last month,” Hsu said. “The strengthening US dollar is luring global capital away from emerging markets, including Taiwan, leaving real -estate assets less attractive.”
Hsu, who had previously expected the housing market to bounce back this quarter, now holds a neutral view.
The return of unpaid leave at science-based parks in Hsinchu and Taichung is also likely to weaken home sales in those areas, where transactions have so far been less affected by the introduction of a luxury tax in June because of their relative affordability, Hsu said.
Low-priced units near public transportation will be the mainstay in the coming months, while inquiries about upscale housing are likely to turn sluggish, she said.
Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋), the nation’s largest real-estate broker by number of outlets, said transactions remained unchanged in last month from August as customers regained some of their confidence, following auctions of commercial properties over the last two weeks that drew record offers.
However, overall sales at Evertrust lagged behind the January level by 30 percent after reports that the luxury tax was starting to impact sales in February, Everstrust associate manager Jeffery Huang (黃增福) said.
The market is unlikely to recover fully until the eurozone shows signs of stabilization from its debt crisis, Huang said.
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
RSS