Property transactions last month totaled 18,565 units in Taiwan’s six special municipalities, representing an increase of 8.6 percent from October, as builders wrapped up construction and turned over ownership to buyers ahead of the year’s end, brokers said.
However, the volume represents a 28.5 percent plunge from November last year, as interest rate hikes and economic uncertainty slowed purchase decisions.
Construction on presale housing projects in Taipei, Taoyuan, Taichung and Kaohsiung were completed and delivered, bolstering the number of deals to 1,999 units, 3,724 units, 4,286 units and 2,708 units respectively, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) deputy research manager Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said.
Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times
Property transfers in New Taipei City reported a 10 percent rise to 4,238 units, and shrank 0.7 percent to 1,610 units in Tainan, Chen added.
Taiwanese developers often aim to complete projects by the year’s end to meet buyers’ needs and strengthen annual financial statements.
The housing market has not been spared from an economic slowdown in Taiwan and heightened fear of recession in the US and Europe, where central banks are raising interest rates to tame inflation despite job losses and economic downturns.
Transactions in the first 11 months of this year fell 7 percent from a year earlier, and the pace of retreat has been widening each month, Chen said.
The decline is set to persist in light of growing mortgage burdens, softening GDP growth and a negative wealth effect linked to TAIEX corrections, Chen said.
Taiwan’s central bank has hiked interest rates three times this year and is widely believed to make another increase later this month.
The decline is most evident in Kaohsiung and Tainan at 14.3 percent and 12.4 percent respectively, Great Home Realty Co (大家房屋) lead researcher Mandy Lang (郎美囡) said, but added that it is partly due to a high base last year.
The housing market in southern Taiwan enjoyed a two-year boom on the back of investment and expansion plans of local chipmakers and international equipment suppliers.
The property fever subsided after local tech firms cut and postponed capital spending due to order cancelations and sluggish end-market demand, Lang said.
H&B Business Group (住商不動產) research director Jessica Hsu (徐佳馨) said the lack of consensus over house prices have also dragged transactions.
Large developers have deep pockets and tend to hold firm on prices, as this strategy has paid off in the past, Hsu said.
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