Major property brokers reported a small monthly decline in housing transactions last month, but an annual drop of about 30 percent, dashing hopes of a high season, due to economic uncertainty and unfavorable legislation.
H&B Realty Co (住商不動產), Taiwan’s largest broker by the number of franchises, said deals last month declined 2.3 percent from November, which it blamed on an economic slowdown and interest rate hikes.
The decline was most evident in Taipei with a 10.9 percent drop, followed by New Taipei City, which fell 7.9 percent, and Taoyuan, which declined 5.7 percent, H&B Realty said.
Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times
The housing market in central and southern Taiwan fared more resilient, it said.
Taichung logged a 0.8 percent monthly drop, while deals in Tainan and Kaohsiung gained 9.2 percent and 1.5 percent respectively, H&B Realty said.
“Buying interest remains weak overall, even though the monthly figure in Tainan has increased for the past three months,” H&B chief researcher Jessica Hsu (徐佳馨) said.
Transactions in all six special municipalities slumped by double-digit percentages from a year earlier, Hsu said.
Transactions last year plummeted 46.1 percent annually in Kaohsiung, fell more than 30 percent in Taoyuan and Taipei, and retreated more than 20 percent in Tainan and Taichung, she said.
Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋), Taiwan’s largest broker by the number of offices, said its transactions last month rose 2 percent from November, but fell 32 percent from a year earlier.
People turned hesitant about property purchases after major economic indicators slipped into the contraction zone, while the central bank signaled further interest rates hikes if inflation remains high, Evertrust Rehouse deputy research head Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said.
Unease deepened after the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee last month approved bills that ban the transfer of presale housing contracts and subjects legal entities to prior approval before they can buy real estate, Chen said.
The unfavorable macro-environment is why transactions last year likely fell from 2021 and could shrink further this year, Chen said.
Price corrections for presale contracts would occur once the proposed bans take effect, driving investors off the market or have them lock their capital for a long period, Evertrust said.
Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋), Taiwan’s only listed broker, said that consideration periods became longer last month.
However, transactions of apartments priced NT$10 million to NT$25 million (US$325,648 to US$814,000) in Taipei held relatively stable, as well as those priced NT$10 million to NT$15 million in New Taipei City, Sinyi research manager Tseng Ching-der (曾進德) said.
When an apartment comes up for rent in Germany’s big cities, hundreds of prospective tenants often queue down the street to view it, but the acute shortage of affordable housing is getting scant attention ahead of today’s snap general election. “Housing is one of the main problems for people, but nobody talks about it, nobody takes it seriously,” said Andreas Ibel, president of Build Europe, an association representing housing developers. Migration and the sluggish economy top the list of voters’ concerns, but analysts say housing policy fails to break through as returns on investment take time to register, making the
‘SILVER LINING’: Although the news caused TSMC to fall on the local market, an analyst said that as tariffs are not set to go into effect until April, there is still time for negotiations US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he would likely impose tariffs on semiconductor, automobile and pharmaceutical imports of about 25 percent, with an announcement coming as soon as April 2 in a move that would represent a dramatic widening of the US leader’s trade war. “I probably will tell you that on April 2, but it’ll be in the neighborhood of 25 percent,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club when asked about his plan for auto tariffs. Asked about similar levies on pharmaceutical drugs and semiconductors, the president said that “it’ll be 25 percent and higher, and it’ll
CHIP BOOM: Revenue for the semiconductor industry is set to reach US$1 trillion by 2032, opening up opportunities for the chip pacakging and testing company, it said ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控), the world’s largest provider of outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) services, yesterday launched a new advanced manufacturing facility in Penang, Malaysia, aiming to meet growing demand for emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The US$300 million facility is a critical step in expanding ASE’s global footprint, offering an alternative for customers from the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea and China to assemble and test chips outside of Taiwan amid efforts to diversify supply chains. The plant, the company’s fifth in Malaysia, is part of a strategic expansion plan that would more than triple
Taiwanese artificial intelligence (AI) server makers are expected to make major investments in Texas in May after US President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office and amid his rising tariff threats, Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association (TEEMA, 台灣電子電機公會) chairman Richard Lee (李詩欽) said yesterday. The association led a delegation of seven AI server manufacturers to Washington, as well as the US states of California, Texas and New Mexico, to discuss land and tax issues, as Taiwanese firms speed up their production plans in the US with many of them seeing Texas as their top option for investment, Lee said. The
RSS