Presale housing projects in northern Taiwan could see a 5 percent growth rate this year, to NT$1.34 trillion (US$47.13 billion), down from the 27 percent gain seen last year, as developers turn cautious in the wake of the central bank last month introducing selective credit controls, the Chinese-language My Housing Monthly said yesterday.
The central bank has capped the loan-to-value ratios for purchases by corporate and multiple home owners at 55 to 65 percent, as well as on unsold houses and land financing, in a bid to curb price hikes.
“The presale market has a chance of breaking records this year on the back of continued economic growth, excessive liquidity and low interest rates,” My Housing Monthly research manager Ho Shih-chang (何世昌) said.
Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times
Forecasters at home and abroad expect Taiwan’s GDP growth to reach between 3 and 4 percent this year, and the central bank has said that it would stay in tune with global peers on a loose monetary policy stance.
Developers, especially those in Hsinchu, would refrain from introducing new projects that require more capital in the wake of the central bank’s new measures, Ho said.
The projection, if materialized, would make it difficult to reverse housing price hikes because real demand is growing here due to the Hsinchu Science Park (新竹科學園區), the publication said.
Presale projects in Hsinchu last year fell 10 percent to NT$100 billion, weighed down by the COVID-19 pandemic.
A supply shortage accounted for the phenomenon of people waiting in line to buy new homes last year, he said.
Presale projects in northern Taiwan last year rose a total of 27 percent to NT$1.28 trillion, compared with the 13 percent increase seen in 2019, My Housing Monthly reported.
Taiwan’s effective control of the COVID-19 pandemic and its resilient economy has allowed the property market to stage a quick recovery, it said.
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